Mixed Level Parties

[Wiseman]

So I was reading through the 3.5DMG recently, and I came to the part about character death. It mentions that if a character dies, and someone want's to start a new character, their new character should be one level less than the party average.

Then I was reading the Joke Book (Epic level handbook) and it mentions something as ridiculous as having a 27th level character next to a 21st level character. To deal with that, it recommends that the 21st level character be just a glorified mook killer. WTF?!

Which comes to my issue. Can mixed level parties even work? (Also note that it mentions average, which means that the designers gave it a serious consideration that parties should even BE mixed level in the first place). Can you create a satisfying game when some of the characters are vastly more powerful than the others (not counting class discrepancies)?

[Foxwarrior]

Well, it's boring to wait for someone else to make a decision that doesn't matter to you, and it's not all that exciting to spend a bunch of time making a decision that doesn't matter much to yourself. If you can get the players of the low-level characters to recognize that the normal kinds of combat decisions are meaningless when they do them, they can try influencing the course of the campaign using the tools they do have, like "a voice" and "the ability to be injured". When life doesn't give you weapons, become a man of peace, as they say.

It's still not much fun to play a cheerleader in a dungeon crawl when nobody can be bothered to watch you.

And a 1 level difference isn't actually all that much; it's smaller than the difference in single-encounter effectiveness gained by playing recklessly.

[Nachtigallerator]

I guess that depends on the content of the game, because not all levels are created equal. If the higher-level character's superior power is mostly restricted to combat (say, Races of War combat classes) then a lower-level wizard could still be a very useful addition to do social shenanigans, transportation, or divinations or such. That won't make him more adequate during combat, though.

If "character performs adequate in combat" is neccessary for the game to be "satisfying" is subjective. A few players will gladly be glorified mook-killers and otherwise handle side areas that your combat powerhouses aren't equipped to deal with. In general though, I think such situations are time bombs below your gaming table and should be avoided. Nothing stops you from giving all characters decent combat performance and out-of-combat usefulness.

[virgil]

Nothing stops you from giving all characters decent combat performance and out-of-combat usefulness.

Players can stop you, as I discovered. Between telling the party that there won't be a DM and letting the player not accept the buffed feat/class (in my case, it was a matter of Pathfinder monk and Tome monk) during character creation, chances are you'll take the latter.

[ishy]

Can mixed level parties even work?
Can you create a satisfying game when some of the characters are vastly more powerful than the others (not counting class discrepancies)?

Yes and yes.
But while you could do that, you never should. There are no benefits at all to mixed level parties. Fuck that shit.

[name_here]

I need to make an image macro for this or something because I say it a lot: This works excellently in Fire Emblem because the player controls multiple characters but is not a good idea if everyone has only one character.

[Chamomile]

So many problems with party balance are solved if you've got one guy running a party. It makes me wonder if perhaps the hobby would best be moved to a group of 2-3, one GM and a small number of players each running multiple characters at once, rather than the current setup of one character to a player. The Fighter being useless except as a meatshield to the Wizard isn't a big deal if they're run by the same dude. A character being useless except in a niche role that comes up only one in every three fights is okay if the player is also running other characters who are useful in the other two fights. High mortality rates are less of an issue when you've got some extra characters on hand. It's fine if one character takes a temporary hit to power in exchange for longterm gain, because your other characters are still running at full steam.

[hogarth]

In 3E D&D or Pathfinder, an underleveled PC rapidly catches up to the rest of the party anyways (at least at higher levels) so what's the point?

[Juton]

I've played in a few games where PC's varied a lot by level. Like a gap of more than 3 levels. It works if the MC balances things around the level of the most skillful players.

Having a small spread (1-2) in levels is actually pretty normal in the games I've played in. It doesn't make much of a difference and like Hogarth points out they catch up quickly.

[Foxwarrior]

Chamomile: Yes. I agree. However, four or five players is better for the Fantasy Socialization and Wacky Shenanigans parts of an RPG. With only two or three players, it's hard to keep the ideas flowing fast enough/have a mix of people who keep it going and people who come up with a few great details.

[erik]

In 3E D&D or Pathfinder, an underleveled PC rapidly catches up to the rest of the party anyways (at least at higher levels) so what's the point?

Not that quickly. And if they meaningfully participate in those combats you're likely going to die again and make the problem worse.

For a long time my 3e group DMs ruled that if you started a new character you started at level 1. I got a couple unlucky low level deaths and then I wound up continually dying and falling farther and farther behind since I was not high enough level to survive our encounters. Anything that I could possibly harm they could handle with no problem, and anything that could possibly harm them was nearly an instant kill on me. I finally got fed up with the bullshit when I had struggled back up to level 7 and died to a purple worm surprise-round swallowing when the other party members were level 12+ and in permanent polymorph forms.

[zugschef]

For a long time my 3e group DMs ruled that if you started a new character you started at level 1.

what an idiot.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

OD&D to 3E has always considered mixed parties and for good reason: There has to be a benefit for having more xp than other characters, but you don't want to force other people to not play.

A well designed game is more tolerant of mixed level parties not falling apart to the opposition or overwhelming it.

[bosssmiley]

So many problems with party balance are solved if you've got one guy running a party. It makes me wonder if perhaps the hobby would best be moved to a group of 2-3, one GM and a small number of players each running multiple characters at once, rather than the current setup of one character to a player.

This would actually be something of a reversion to the original play style of D&D, as created by EGG and his circle: primary characters + back-up/replacement henchmen.

The whole henchman tree thing 1) mitigated against the game grinding to a halt if precious snowflake sole characters died and 2) allowed players to participate in multiple episodic adventures as their RL schedules permitted.

[ishy]

OD&D to 3E has always considered mixed parties and for good reason: There has to be a benefit for having more xp than other characters, but you don't want to force other people to not play.

What would that good reason be? Why should some party members have more xp than the others? Why should you have a game where some people are weaker than the others because you handed them less XP?

[wotmaniac]

In my experience -- past level 5, mixed-level parties where party members are only +/-1 level from each other is not an issue at all -- in addition to these discrepancies going away fairly quickly, the power/survivability differences are practically negligible.

and the higher the party level, the more tolerance there is in acceptable level differences. (as a rule of thumb, maybe 1 level difference per 6 character levels?)

[erik]

For a long time my 3e group DMs ruled that if you started a new character you started at level 1.

what an idiot.

Everyone is an idiot some of the time. This was his moment I'm afraid. I did talk him into changing his mind eventually. He wanted to provide disincentive for people to do change characters. I think his concern was overblown and well, he came around.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

OD&D to 3E has always considered mixed parties and for good reason: There has to be a benefit for having more xp than other characters, but you don't want to force other people to not play.

What would that good reason be? Why should some party members have more xp than the others? Why should you have a game where some people are weaker than the others because you handed them less XP?

Take a look at my sig for the Online 3.5/ PF Campaign Black Marches or look at the Adventures Archive

You'll notice that there are multiple DMs and the players and characters are not the same from adventure to adventure. When you want to encourage and play in a shared gaming setting, you want to encourage games and you'll get different sets of players for different games and participants will switch back and forth from being DM to being Player.

As such, the only way to ensure everyone has the same xp would be to grant every character xp whether they played in the adventure or not which is not fair to those involved. There has to be a reward for actually participating in an adventure, that's how you encourage more adventures.

Even in my college gaming group where I was the only DM, we had regulars sure, but never was every person there every time. As such, it's important that a game be flexible enough to handle mixed level parties.

Hope that makes sense,

Bill

[Darth Rabbitt]

I couldn't disagree more.

If a friend that's in my gaming group misses a session because they have something important to do, I don't want to punish them for it, nor do I want to punish the people who could make it for the fact that another player is busy IRL by stopping that session for the missing person.

Players who are able to make it to the session get first dibs on any loot found/taken/rewarded and get more screen time since there's one (or more) players less, which I've found is more than reward enough for them.

And since everyone's playing the game to have fun, having to miss a session (even for something really good) is a punishment of sorts; not giving them enough XP to catch up with the rest of the party is just adding insult to injury.

[hogarth]

OD&D to 3E has always considered mixed parties and for good reason: There has to be a benefit for having more xp than other characters, but you don't want to force other people to not play.

What would that good reason be? Why should some party members have more xp than the others? Why should you have a game where some people are weaker than the others because you handed them less XP?

The logic is impeccable (why have individual XP if you never use it?), but my response is to get rid of XP instead.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

You have to look at it from a bigger scale.

If you have multiple DMs and multiple players it's very hard to arbitrarily say everyone must have equal xp. Not only that but you have to somehow keep track of who had the highest xp from the last game and then make sure everyone in future games starts at a higher level. You might even have games which supposed a lower level but the games right before it granted xp to its participants catapulting them to a higher level and the participants in the following game have to level up even though they didn't participate in the previous game.

Moreover, sometimes DMs and players want lower level games while other DMs and players want higher level games. If you insist that everyone has the same xp, then you kill off a diversity of fun gaming.

Secondly, if you insist that characters have the same xp, then you give no incentive for players to save or be efficient with their purchases. Essentially I should buy wands and metamagic overcharge all of them all the time and make a new character the next game. And why not? All characters start with the same xp.

Thirdly, even ignoring the previous example, if there's no reward for sticking through with one character, it invites other characters to one-up the other characters at the final battle who haven't actually played through all of the campaign. They can just show up and win: essentially breaking the dramatic arc.

Fourthly, rewarding players who show up is an essential point in logic and contributes to the feeling of a better game. If people who don't show up for games get the same rewards as those who don't, then what's the use in trying to show up? And I don't agree it adds insult to injury. In fact, if you have multiple DMs it's easier for an extra session to be planned for other characters to come in. Not only that, but if the character continues to game, it makes it easier for them to catch up.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Well, I have little experience with multi-DM campaigns, so perhaps they work differently.

Having some players and DMs want high level games and others want low level games doesn't mean that you make some players high level and others low level in the same party, as that would just mean a few players either do nothing or die most (if not all) of the time.

It means that DMs that want to run low level games run low level games, and DMs that want to run high level games run high level games, and players play in the games they like.

High level and low level play aren't chocolate and peanut butter, they're water and pure sodium.

Awarding XP equally doesn't necessarily mean that you auto level up the person who blows XP on creating magic items or something. It means that players who haven't attended get the XP they would have if they attended.

It also doesn't necessarily mean "you make a new character every session."

I would rather risk the person who has been able to attend lose a bit of spotlight later on in the game rather than ensure that the person who hasn't been able to make it will never get any.

For a single DM, it can be much harder to add another session than to just level up the person who isn't, and again, first share of the loot and more screen time are both really nice rewards.

[Josh_Kablack]

While in general, there are ways in which mixed level parties can work; D&D has a vast array of mechanics which make mixed level parties highly likely to result in the lower-leveled characters dying repeatedly and lagging ever further behind. On top of the obvious RNG, Damage and HP scaling, we have:

• AoE Damage effects which scale with level - meaning that you don't want to be standing next to a higher level character when that character is facing a level appropriate challenge.
• Long-duration status ailments which can only be cured by Level N spells - meaning that if the cleric ever falls a level behind the party has zero defense against certain level-appropriate challenges
• Spells which have harsher effects on characters with HD < N. (color spray, blashphemy, etc) which mean that characters must be this tall to go on the adventure
• Character abilities which are explicitly based on the difference in level (3e uncanny Dodge)
• Enemies only defeatable by puzzles with the answer to the puzzle having a minimum level (+N or better weapons, specific spell(s) of level N) -- meaning that lower leveled characters will not be able to contribute to some encounters at all.
• GTFO abilities which have level-restricted immunities or counters.
• Spells which mimic other class' lower-level spells and other weak role-protections, meaning that frequently a character two or more levels behind will just be a weaker version of another character in the party and not bring anything at all unique to the table.

Now even with all of those, most D&D games don't break down too bad or too obviously if level gaps are small relative to average party level.

But if you want to try to run a game with larger level gaps, then you need to try to mitigate some of those. Refrain from using opponents who throw high damage AoEs or HD threshhold spells. Hand out treasure which cures or grants immunity to insanity and the other bullshit status ailments. Make sure your puzzle monsters and any of their GTFO abilities are defeatable by things everyone has access to. Restrict spells which mimic other class spells, and/or give every class some unique and role-protected schtick(s).

[wotmaniac]

I've noticed a problem with the fundamental assumptions concerning this thread -- everyone seems to be assuming that mixed levels are necessarily due to either unequal XP rewards or that new starting characters are starting at lower levels than the current party level .... with an undertone of "fuck you, DM".

The thing that this assumption is missing is that there are actual in-game things that cause level discrepancies -- e.g., Raise Dead, level drain, etc.
Just sayin'.

[Red_Rob]

Keeping everyone on the same level and xp total is, I think, preferable if you can manage it. This is easiest with single DM parties willing to house rule away the common xp and level fuckery. In our last campaign we removed xp and level loss entirely - Negative levels just stayed on until you made the save, Raise Dead added a Negative level rather than level loss, items were regulated using the Masterpiece system rather than xp, and levels were awarded at appropriate plot junctures (we were playing an adventure path).

However, in a more relaxed game where players drop in and out, or where a character may play in several different games, it isn't so easy to keep everyone at the same power level. This doesn't mean you shouldn't attempt it where possible - I've played as a level 1 character joining a level 8 party and it's not pretty. However, as has been pointed out by Frank and others, lower level characters level more quickly and so discrepancies do tend to even themselves out over time.