A Demon Haunted World

jt · Post by jt » Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:21 am

You can sort of make 3.5-like per-level multiclassing work if instead of starting your new class from 1, you always take your current level. So builds are described as fighter 1-4, sorcerer 5, fighter 6, sorcerer 7-8. This imposes the constraint that all level 7s are roughly equal, which is something you already wanted but now mistakes are worse, in much the same way that juggling flaming torches isn't technically harder than juggling regular clubs. And it neatly solves a lot of tier stuff; if you can't make level-appropriate fighter abilities past level 6 then the class just has levels 1-6. There's no appropriate level 1 abilities for a Ghost King so it's only levels 11-20. If you're feeling cheeky you could even put a hole in Bard every five levels so they all end up as wacky multiclasses.

Okay, I don't actually recommend this. Unless the goal of your project is make the game really fun for character optimization forums.

I've previously built a game around the same sort of idea that Foxwarrior suggested, it works really well and I'd recommend it*. You can have more than three aspects in a class too; my Paladins were choosing two out of ten principles that they were paladining about, and people were so excited about this that nearly all 45 combinations found a fan. That plus picking a new bundle of classes every tier seems like it answers an awful lot of questions.

* However, the system I made did not do level advancement, and the content creation work of multiplying this across levels sounds rough.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:34 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Fighter isn't a high level concept, and so you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking that any variation on "Better Fighter" is going to be a high level concept. But if you make there be Prestige Classes that have come from statements tagged to Fighter, you are committing yourself to making umpteen versions of "Better Fighter." And all of them are going to be insulting trap options no matter how pure your motives are.

-Username17

Just because WotC's fighter prestige classes were lame does not mean you can't make a better fighter that hangs with level appropriate characters.

It just means that WotC never had me pitching concepts Fighter concepts to them.

Hellfucker - You were once one of the Prime Material plane's greatest warriors and generals. You were also somewhat of a hedonist, and it is your hedonism that drove you to invade the Celestial realms with your army. and colelct 1000 angel hymens, which you forged into a suit of armor that you wore as you descended into the depths of the Nine Hells and cut off an Archdevil's Chock, which you forged into intelligent sword that craves the blood of virgins and can shatter the barriers of space and time with but a single swing.

And yes, this is pretty close to being an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach, but high level fighter concepts are going to be Elothar Warriors, because they're very equipment dependent. Being equipment dependent is only a bad thing if you're dcks about handing out equipment.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:24 am

If you expect equipment to be part of your class instead of quest rewards, you might not be playing D&D. There's somewhat less incentive to loot if your means of getting resources is through XP instead of looting.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:47 am

What do harriers, ravaged, and lurkers do?

Im guessing the lurker ambushes you with a SoD and runs away if it fails?

Whiysper · Post by **Whiysper** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:21 pm

at a guess:
Harriers are skirmishers - harassing and flanking you, generally mobile, hard to pin down, and dangerous if left alone. Think 3e scout with the Skirmish mechanic.
Lurkers are ambush predators - lurking until they get a good chance to attack, and then revealing themselves and screwing up your whole day. Think sudden strike/tunnel spider, that sort of thing.
Ravager I'd guess is a balls-out glass cannon - BloodSpiked Charger with Pounce, sort of thing. Shut 'em down before they get a chance to murderball your entire face.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:22 pm

First off, having a 'full version class' and a 'slightly gimped' version isn't going to work. If medusa is 'better' than 'fire giant', pairing them both with the slightly gimped is going to result in different power-levels. Determining 'substitution abilities' for every monster in your monster book(s) isn't going to work.

You're going to have to accept that being a monster costs a certain number of levels. Now, you can still do that better than 3.x did.

First off, a 15 HD 'monster' can probably replace their monster HD with class HD. Having a Paladin 15 Firegiant is probably not much different than having a Paladin 15 Human - especially because the human could have polymorphed into a fire giant ages ago.

So an Ogre (4 HD) with 4 Paladin levels is better than a human with 4 Paladin levels. But is it better than one with 5 Paladin levels? How about 6?

Ultimately, you pick an LA (+1 or +2) and you let them take the full character class for their Monster HD, and your Ogre is a Druid 4 and you're with a party of 6th level characters.

On the subject of multi-classing, I think 2nd edition might ultimately have done it better. You gain levels SIMULTANEOUSLY in both classes. We do that by making you a gestalt character (choosing the best class feature of both) and counting that as 1 or 2 levels. So a FTR5/SOR5 is not a 10th level character with no relevant abilities - they're a 6th level character with only 5 HD.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:56 pm

Monsters absolutely should not cost any number of levels. Levelling up is a nonlinear increase in power. If Fire Giant 4/Wizard 6 is balanced with Wizard 10, then Fire Giant 4/Wizard 7 will not be balanced with Wizard 11. Wizard 11 is worth more than wizard 7. You must continue to advance in your main class. This is a constraint - but not the only constraint - on coming up with a better solution than 3.5.

Ultimately, becoming a monster is a handful of abilities which would be appropriate in a certain level range. If you can make a player trade abilities they would have gotten in that level range for their monster abilities, then you have solved the problem. But most classes aren't particularly designed with feature swaps and open selections in mind, and so this is a nontrivial change.

Frank is talking about accomplishing this with subclass tracks. Everyone is an uneven gestalt. This guarantees level appropriateness in your main class, which is the constraint mentioned above, but does not allow for different monsters to cost different amounts of character power.

I've suggested standardized Pathfinder archetyping. Just have the class describe how it pays out abilities for alternates, and if you decide for your game that being a fire giant (being big, being fire resistant/immune, and throwing rocks) is a 4-6 thing then players just look up what their class gives up to buy archetypes on the 4-6 range and note the trade on your character sheet. And also every class should get some version of rogue talent/alchemist discovery/magus arcana etc. whatever, because it's simply too functional to have an obvious currency like that. Pathfinder archetypes do a surprising amount of heavy-lifting for how little work they are, and the concept can absolutely be improved further.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:16 pm

I will agree that the 'cost' of monster levels should be reduced over time. A creature that has level-relevant abilities for Tier 1 and Tier 2 may not have any level-relevant abilities at Tier 3. If an Ogre Ranger 5 is a 6th level character, it's possible that an Ogre Ranger 7 isn't equivalent to an 8th level character, and that +1 LA needs to go away. The reason is that at some point, characters get abilities that directly emulate or exceed 'being an ogre'. Being strong and big all of the time are definitely possible by the time you get to Tier 3, so at that point a Human Ranger 10 and an Ogre Ranger 10 are exactly equivalent - the human can pick up 'free Ogre levels' by transforming.

But you should be able to determine a 'level cost' at each tier, with the idea that it will diminish as you cross tiers.

LA in 3.x was gimped for two reasons. The first is that it counted total HD as levels (ie, so an Ogre was a 4th level character with 4 monster HD) even though those levels provided fewer benefits than PC class levels. The second is that the LAs were just too high.

A standard 15 HD Fire Giant is 'tough'. A Fire Giant that had all of those monster HD replaced with Paladin HD is 'tougher'. If you allow the monster to straight up replace their monster HD with PC HD, the only issue left is 'what is the monster's special abilities worth'. In the case of a Fire Giant at Level 15, the answer is maybe 1.

So a PC with 15 class levels and 'Fire Giant' is probably a 16th level character. They'll be 1 level below the rest of the part, but the difference in power between a single level at that point isn't extreme - they'll still be able to contribute in meaningful ways. Eventually, the 'being a Fire Giant' won't be worth a level and it'll have to reduce - so you do that when you cross tiers.

For tiers, I think 6th, 11th, 16th and 21st make sense (every 5 levels), assuming standard D&D. There aren't 'hard breaks' - you can still use 4th level adventures for 6th level characters, but that's the point where you really stop being 'low-level and move to 'mid-level'.

So for an Ogre Paladin 4 would be a 5th level character. An Ogre Paladin 6 would be a 6th level character.

And of course, since that would be across the 'tier break', it wouldn't actually be Paladin. It would be Paladin 5/Crusader 1.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:51 pm

Earlier in the thread when strictly tiered classes with subclasses were a thing my first thought was "your Fire Giant abilities are your subclass for Tier X, which is the tier at which enemy Fire Giants appear, because you're a real person the rest of your levels are normal person levels"

With presumably Fire Giant swapped out for an opponent with actually interesting abilities if used as an example of sub classes that are available only from a particular point.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 6:59 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:First off, having a 'full version class' and a 'slightly gimped' version isn't going to work. If medusa is 'better' than 'fire giant', pairing them both with the slightly gimped is going to result in different power-levels. Determining 'substitution abilities' for every monster in your monster book(s) isn't going to work.

This is complete gibberish. Medusas are a lower level monster than Fire Giants. For this discussion a Medusa is a Level 5 Lurker, a Fire Giant is a Level 9 Brute. Both are just a Monster class. The only way that Medusa is better than Fire Giant is that it only has 5 levels defined so by the time you get to 9th level you'll have been able to loot the Monster Manual for some lurker abilities and like spin webs or some fucking thing.

There are no substitution levels. It's just a monster class. Monster classes are gimped to begin with because 9th level Berserkers are better than 9th level Brutes and 5th level Assassins are better than 5th level Lurkers. Multiclass versions of classes have to be gimped as well, because adding them to "something" is better than adding them to "nothing," which is the thing you'd get if you were single classed.

You're going to have to accept that being a monster costs a certain number of levels. Now, you can still do that better than 3.x did.

No. You do not have to accept that, because that is a terrible fucking idea. Costing X levels is just the 3e multiclass paradigm, and that didn't work because it literally mathematically cannot work. The abilities you get at level 8 are supposed to be balanced in a level 8 environment. Some of the things in the level 8 environment are gatekeeper challenges and you literally and specifically need some of the actual 8th level abilities to handle the challenges. If you get 5th level abilities instead because something or another cost you 3 levels, you fucking don't have 8th level abilities and you aren't a fucking 8th level character.

The paradigm you are espousing is bullshit. It won't work because it is mathematically impossible for it to work. That is 100% of the brainspace I'm going to bother wasting on this suggestion.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:23 pm

Wait, I'm not following Frank's position anymore. Are Medusas supposed to be Lurkers (aka: Thieves-lite) forever? Is Lurker a 20 level class?

Or is it this position that because the classes have well defined break points, being 10 levels long, that a Medusa (Lurker 5 out of the MM) or an Ogre (Brute 3) are supposed to remain on a monster class for 5 or 7 more levels, until they hit the breakpoint for paragon classes?

Also, do the breakpoints for classes mean that you have paragon or epic monster classes, too? Or do the monster classes break the paradigm by being 20 (or 30) levels long?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:03 pm

nockermensch wrote:Wait, I'm not following Frank's position anymore. Are Medusas supposed to be Lurkers (aka: Thieves-lite) forever? Is Lurker a 20 level class?

Or is it this position that because the classes have well defined break points, being 10 levels long, that a Medusa (Lurker 5 out of the MM) or an Ogre (Brute 3) are supposed to remain on a monster class for 5 or 7 more levels, until they hit the breakpoint for paragon classes?

Also, do the breakpoints for classes mean that you have paragon or epic monster classes, too? Or do the monster classes break the paradigm by being 20 (or 30) levels long?

Brute, Controller, Harrier, Lurker, and Ravager would be 10 level classes. If you were a monstrous race that had one of those classes, you'd multiclass with the monster class for 10 levels. Thereafter, you would go on to a prestige class.

I don't honestly know how you'd deal with someone who wanted to play a Prestige Antagonist in a Prestige Level game. I think that's enough of an edge case that if someone wanted to playa Nightmare Beast, Orcwort, or Pitfiend that they could probably just figure out how to do that or wait for an expansion book. If you want to have a hex-conquest campaign where one of the players is playing a tree that grows troops as fruit, that seems niche enough that the core rules don't have to directly address this.

If this is your character concept, a DM discussion may be in order.

In any case, a multiclass character takes a regular Prestige Class at the regular time. So if an Elf Ranger graduates to being a Ghost King at level 11, a Minotaur Bute/Paladin can graduate to being a Ghost King at level 11 as well.

And yeah, whether you're a Minotaur or a Fire Giant, you're still going to be taking all 10 levels of Brute before you punch out into a Prestige Class. Because as previously noted there is no fair or reasonable way to start or stop a new level progression at a non-standard time. One of the advantages of having a class reshuffle at 6th level is that it would allow Minotaurs and Dryads to become Bandit Chiefs and Shadow Dancers at 6th level and stop worrying about Multiclassing with monster classes.

-Username17

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:34 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: No. You do not have to accept that, because that is a terrible fucking idea. Costing X levels is just the 3e multiclass paradigm, and that didn't work because it literally mathematically cannot work. The abilities you get at level 8 are supposed to be balanced in a level 8 environment. Some of the things in the level 8 environment are gatekeeper challenges and you literally and specifically need some of the actual 8th level abilities to handle the challenges.

I think this implies a 'harder cap' then exists - one that you refuted a moment before.

If a challenge is an '8th level challenge', 7th level characters may find it difficult, 8th level characters may find it appropriate, and 9th level characters may find it easy. And in fact, 6th level characters and 10th level characters may interact with it in a meaningful way.

Asking 1st level characters to deal with 8th level challenges is pretty dumb. But I can't think of a single level that has a 'hard level cap' - especially with magical items that you can obtain that let you cast a small number of spells above your normal level.

If your 'gimp rogue' is a lurker, and you had to develop a lurker for your Monster Book anyway, you wouldn't have to redevelop gimp versions of every class, so you MIGHT be able to make that work, but you still have to figure out how much currency a drow versus a medusa versus an ifrit ought to cost.

As far as how you're deciding how many levels a Medusa is equivalent to, I haven't the foggiest. Since this is a thought exercise, I don't know if you're using the standard 3.x 6 HD monster that is CR 7 and why a Fire Giant is a Level 9 bruiser (15 HD, CR 10). I will say that I've seen parties messed up by a Gaze Attack more often than I've seen a Bruiser wipe the floor with them.

What people want is to be a Medusa Rogue. Since Rogue is a real class, they need to pay for being a Medusa with SOMETHING. If that something is 'being a rogue' then they're not going to be happy. If that something is '5 hp, reduce Sneak Attack by 1d6, and qualify for Improved Uncanny Dodge one level later', they'll be much happier. And if you did that, you made it cost a level. Especially if they can 'catch up' when being a Medusa stops offering any real advantage.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:41 pm

Well, you gotta define how long is the game supposed to be. With a breakpoint at level 10, it kind of implies you're doing the 4e thing with the game being 30 levels long. For a more 3e experience, I'd make the cut somewhat like this:

levels 1-6: mundane
levels 7-12: paragon
levels 13-20: epic

It's not incidental that these break points mean that spells from levels 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9 get segregated into tiers. It's also not incidental that most prestige classes came online at about the divide of the mundane and paragon tiers.

Finally, it's also not incidental that the mundane tier lasts for 6 levels, so people who are into E6 can just jump right into your game's bandwagon.

The bad side is that the tiers people actually play in are just 6 levels long, while the gonzo epic tier is 8. You could make each tier 7 levels long (maybe slightly stretching the levels people access new spells levels) and still make it work.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:02 pm

If, for a moment, we were just talking about how to solve the multiclass issue and didn't have any constraints over to how it could be done I would just step away from classes as they are in 3.x almost altogether and only use the idea as a starting kit that sets players/monsters up with what they needed to get rolling. Instead of trying to hammer out class tiers I'd work on (that is I'm working on) having actual abilities come in tiers since that's what you're ultimately worried about segregating between levels/tiers/whatever. It'd take some work but I'd wager it would take less work than having to worry about multiclassing and balancing a bunch of niche classes/prestige classes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:35 pm

DeadDMWalking wrote:If your 'gimp rogue' is a lurker, and you had to develop a lurker for your Monster Book anyway, you wouldn't have to redevelop gimp versions of every class, so you MIGHT be able to make that work, but you still have to figure out how much currency a drow versus a medusa versus an ifrit ought to cost.

You seem to think you have some sort of gotcha involving the difficulty of making a separate class for every monster in the book. Obviously that would be unworkable, but that's absolutely 180 degrees from what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a Drow being a normal PC race that doesn't have to use the multiclass rules at all, while a Medusa is a Level 5 Lurker and an Ifrit is a Level 7 Controller. So Medusa is an available PC race in games that start at level 5 and above and requires playing a Lurker multiclass, while an Ifrit is available as a PC race in level 7 games and requires a multiclass in Controller. That's it.

It's difficult to design classes in a balanced way. It's even more difficult to design partial classes that are intended to be combined with other classes. But once you accept that the monster powers just come off the monster class lists, that's it. The number of monsters in the book doesn't really make things more difficult. If you can make the Controller class balanced in PC hands then the Dryad, Imp, Nymph, Genie, Rakshasa, and Sphinx are not in principle particularly different things from the standpoint of being balanced or not as a PC option. You thumping your fist about this issue just makes me want to talk to you less because it's not a valid objection and you're coming off as kind of unhinged.

nockermensch wrote:Well, you gotta define how long is the game supposed to be.

That's kind of a tautology, but sure. The issue is how many levels there are for gaming where you are doing basic D&D small unit tactical stuff and how many levels there are for other stuff. Honestly, I don't see any particular reason why Prestige Levels should be as numerous as Adventurer levels. I really honestly don't.

Consider the basic Brute progression:

Grimlock
Ogre
Minotaur
Ettin
Troll
Hill Giant
Stone Giant
Frost Giant
Fire Giant
Cloud Giant

That makes a pretty decent zero to hero scenario where every level the standard encounter's meat shield is bigger and more competent. And that's ten levels of support for being a Ranger.

On the flip side, here's the whole list of Prestige Antagonists I have confirmed:

Kraken
Megapede
Nightmare Beast
Orcwort
Pit Fiend
Roc

Instead of just being a list of level 1-10 Brutes with the Giant Subtype, that's like the whole fucking list. Doubtless I'll make more, and most of the time you're going to be fighting armies and enemy lich kings and shit, but the Prestige Level monster list is super short. There just aren't that many monsters that conceptually take on entire armies rather than duke it out with small groups of adventurers in a cave.

Epic tier can be even shorter, because honestly I haven't even bothered to brainstorm up an Epic Monster list.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:26 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:

Kraken
Megapede
Nightmare Beast
Orcwort
Pit Fiend
Roc
Instead of just being a list of level 1-10 Brutes with the Giant Subtype, that's like the whole fucking list. Doubtless I'll make more

More Prestige Monsters:

Storm Giant
That undead that's a huge larva with skeletons and swarms
Ghaele
Any Gargantuan Dragon, actually
Marilith
Titan (maybe epic?)
Planetar
The Tarrasque

Tentative Epic List

Solar
Colossal+ Dragons
The salvageable abominations and epic monsters (floating fetus of doom and such)

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:37 pm

This feels like it would be a helpful list of suggested Prestige Antagonists

Titan
Solar
Great Wyrm (any of the bigger dragons)
Hoary Hunter (Wild Hunt, etc)
Tarrasque
Formian Queen
Primus (probably more Epic tier)

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:16 pm

The SRD gives minotaurs 6HD, by the way, which is ridiculous.

If the creature powers take the place of kits / sub-classes, you could build that out as follows (including an elite and boss flavor of each boggun).

I've given the Troll a heroic-tier kit of Regeneration, which would make a base-troll not suitable as player character (but which would be fine as a PC as long as you're level 6.) So monsters might be unplayable with level-inappropriate powers or they might not be playable at the level they appear "in the wild", and I think that's okay.

I would say, the defining element of the heroic-tier vs. the adventurer tier is that: 1) you have a base to maintain and potentially defend while you are away, and 2) you are expected (as a party) to be able to fly to cloud castles and adventure on the bottom of the sea and shit, so people have options for character concept palettes that fill those roles. It's the lock-picker character concept that expires at level 5, not the barbarian.


Creature	Base	Common	Elite	Boss
Grimlock	{Eyeless,Mighty}	Bruiser 1	"Shaman" Shaman 2	"Chief" Fighter 3
Ogre	{Mighty,Large}	Bruiser 2	"Manhunter" Assassin 3{Chainfighter}	"Warlord" Fighter 4{Tactics}
Minotaur	{Mighty,Large,Natural Weapons}	Bruiser 3	"Knight" Knight 4	"Helion" Pyromancer 5
Ettin	{Mighty,Large,2-Headed}	Bruiser 4	"Berserker" Berserker 5	"Scourge" Hedge Wizard 5/Blood Mage 1
Troll	{Large,Mighty,Natural Weapons,Regeneration*,Bruiser 5}		"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2
Hill Giant	{Tactics,Mighty,Weapon Superiority,Huge*,Bruiser 5}	Giant 1	"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2
Stone Giant	{Tactics,Mighty,Hardened,Huge*,Bruiser 5}	Giant 2	"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2
Frost Giant	{Tactics,Mighty,Weapon Superiority,Huge,Frostborn,Bruiser 5}	Giant 3	"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2
Fire Giant	{Tactics,Mighty,Weapon Superiority,Huge,Flameborn,Bruiser 5}	Giant 4	"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2
Cloud Giant	{Tactics,Mighty,Weapon Superiority,Huge,Stormborn,Bruiser 5}	Giant 5	"Reveler" Tohunga 1	"Doom" Death Knight 2

EDIT: Oops, hit submit instead of preview. Well, you get the point.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:34 pm

virgil wrote:This feels like it would be a helpful list of suggested Prestige Antagonists
Titan
Solar
Great Wyrm (any of the bigger dragons)
Hoary Hunter (Wild Hunt, etc)
Tarrasque
Formian Queen
Primus (probably more Epic tier)

It's kind of hilarious that we posted lists that were like 70% the same.

Thinking a bit more about this proposition of "Prestige" and "Epic" antagonists, I think it's an absolute necessity that these lists include things like Moving Castles, Dwarven Siege Golems, Dreadnaught-class Spelljammers and such.

D&D is a kitchen sink that already includes dwarves, gnomes and actual robot people (be them magitech robots created on the prime material plane or extraplanar robots from the plane of Ultimate Law that looks like fuckhuge interlockd gears), so it has to include Picture Related:

Picture Related

For mundane adventurers, these things are adventure locations (infiltrate the war machine and steal the plans!) or something you just run from, when they're on full battle mode.

On the prestige tier, the PCs can be building these, or directing battles with or against them, among their other more conventional forces. The PCs can also directly face against a warmachine of that size in battle and win (it'll be a boss battle, however).

On the epic tier, the archmage casts Black Hole, or the God of War uses the "Cleave the Mountains" maneuver, both with the same effect: A machine like that is destroyed with one attack.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:14 am

nockermensch wrote:levels 1-6: mundane
levels 7-12: paragon
levels 13-20: epic

It's not incidental that these break points mean that spells from levels 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9 get segregated into tiers. It's also not incidental that most prestige classes came online at about the divide of the mundane and paragon tiers.

Finally, it's also not incidental that the mundane tier lasts for 6 levels, so people who are into E6 can just jump right into your game's bandwagon.

This is pretty much what I've always wanted to do, except spells span three levels instead of two (1,4,7 instead of 1,3,5) and the game ends at 15 instead of 20. I think 9 spell levels is frankly kind of absurd, and having the game's epic tier be shorter than the other two makes some sense.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:13 am

Something I've proposed before and not gotten any feedback from Frank on is slicing tiers into 1-3/4-9/10-15/16-21. Like the reason that basic is three levels is partly because it you can fit most of the lower specs monsters people are going to want to play into three levels and then have them be stacking their adventurer tier class on top of it like everyone else.

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 2:50 am

I think 4 level tiers makes the most sense. If you have something like BAB that functions on a 1/1, 3/4, 1/2 advancement ratio then 4 level chunks are almost mandatory.

[edit: and spell levels come on line with level 3 spells at the start of second tier, level 5 spells at start of third tier. These have traditionally been pretty big breaking points for capability of characters.]

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:11 am

nockermensch wrote:

Picture Related

Awesome stuff with which I agree

YAS.

Lord Mistborn wrote:basic is three levels is partly because it you can fit most of the lower specs monsters people are going to want to play into three levels and then have them be stacking their adventurer tier class on top of it like everyone else.

Levels are arbitrary numbers, and you can further fit arbitrarily large numbers of monsters into whatever arbitrary intervals you specify.

The question, rather, is how many tiers of play you want to specify, and whether those levels of play require new concepts.

A carrion crawler becomes much less of a threat at level 3 when you can web it but that doesn't mean that everyone needs new character concepts.

I say - there are four tiers!
[*] Murderhobo. A child with a sling and street smarts viably contributes to the party, but I did a social experiment and we also need to support the following which are also first level character concepts ( http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=53506 ) :
A satanist fiend-touched bug-man with mind-knives coming out of his claws.
Someone who has the undead-flunky-having subclass and also delivers spell attacks by stabbing people.
Someone who is a shadowmage, and also small and winged.
A druid with a subclass to know the true names of demons.

[*] Strike Force. At this tier, "clever child with a sling" is no longer a viable concept. Concepts need to contribute to running your mercenary company, to having time and space adventures, or both.
[*] Lord. At this tier, "badass with an axe" is no longer a viable concept. Concepts need to contribute to ruling hexes and moving armies around.
[*] Demigod. At this tier, armies are still marching around, but viable concepts have a force value even if they don't lead any units. Concepts need to contribute to fighting in the Titanomachy on whichever side.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:36 am

erik wrote:I think 4 level tiers makes the most sense. If you have something like BAB that functions on a 1/1, 3/4, 1/2 advancement ratio then 4 level chunks are almost mandatory.

Fractional BAB/save progressions are kind of dumb. They're dumb at first level when the difference between a fighter and a wizard would be unnoticeable if it weren't for ability score prioritization, and they're dumb at max level when the difference between a fighter and a wizard before ability score priorization is already half the RNG. It's one of the reasons the D&D sweet spot is where it is - sure, 4-10 manages to find the sweet spot between abilities that are boring bullshit you don't care you have and abilities that break the setting so hard you can't let yourself remember they're on your character, but it also manages to find the sweet spot between half the numbers on your character sheet being so small you barely care they're there and half the numbers on your character sheet being so large most tasks are now autofails or autosucceeds.

erik wrote:[edit: and spell levels come on line with level 3 spells at the start of second tier, level 5 spells at start of third tier. These have traditionally been pretty big breaking points for capability of characters.]

You want tiers to sync up with new spell levels, yes. If you aren't comfortable switching everyone over to the 2/3rds caster progression (1,4,7) like I mentioned, then your blocks will end up 4-levels long and your tiers would be 1-8, 9-16, 17-20. I don't care much for that, because 9 levels of spells is just absurd. You can't tell the difference between 4th and 5th level spells, and clearly neither could the people writing them. We need to cut that shit down. Maybe 5 levels of spells isn't enough, I'm not entirely sure, but 9 is too many.