Just curious what everyone prefers.
I tend to think many rpg's have 'too many' levels.
Dnd would be 'better' in my opinion, if it topped off at about level 12 instead of 20, 30, or whatever.

Or is it just how those levels are scaled that matters?

What do people think?

I kinda like AD&D's method of allowing further levels, but with diminishing returns.  Allowing the progression to continue is great, but that way you avoid over-inflation and can keep some sort of scale in place.

In a level system, I think I probably agree with you - I'd prefer to see a more moderate number of levels that are significant, rather than an ever-expanding list.

For D&D, I wouldn't put a hard limit on levels, but I like a range where somewhere around 10th level is "high level," levels around 14 are very rare individuals, and levels beyond that tend to be legendary figures.

Quote from: Bill;755356Just curious what everyone prefers.
I tend to think many rpg's have 'too many' levels.
Dnd would be 'better' in my opinion, if it topped off at about level 12 instead of 20, 30, or whatever.

Or is it just how those levels are scaled that matters?

What do people think?

Whatever I can actually play to within a year if I am playing once a week in a full session. Why have it there if you're never going to get there? Or in the neighborhood at least? I also prefer 1/2e's hit point cap at whatever level then the +1/2/3 or whatever per level after that.

6.

Or 12.

No more than that. The math is not your friend there. Though I'm amenable to (and have written in) rules that allow more limited expansion past normal cap, possibly even infinitely (this WAS a common houserule in AD&D days, at least among my friends.)

Speaking to D&D: 12 levels. Every edition of D&D gets shakey after that (if not earlier). 12 levels gives you three distinct tiers of four levels each. It's enough that even with a fast rate of leveling every 3rd session, and assuming no TPKs, it will take the better part of a year of weekly sessions to reach endgame.

I frankly don't understand why 20 levels became some sort of standard for D&D. Especially when polls I've seen show only a small fraction of campaigns make it past 11th or 12th level. High-level powergaming should be its own add-on, with distinct rules, rather than trying to draw out the core system past the breaking point.

Not more than 20, and that's only for the folks who like their epic demi-god style of play akin to the Immortals set back in the day.  Seeing as how 99.99% of all my game play happens below level 15 (most PCs have retired by level 12 or so), I'm perfectly good with a 12-15 cap.

In the old days I don't think we ever got much past 5, and that seemed fine.
The GM of our Pathfinder group has the XP set to 'fast' and I think we're all about at 5 now... and I'd be fine if we just stayed there... I'll start arguing for a retirement/new campaign if we get to 10.

Then again I've never been a fan of the 'zero to hero' thing. Preferring games that represent experience with resources and reputation over mechanical gains.

Quote from: robiswrong;755357I kinda like AD&D's method of allowing further levels, but with diminishing returns.  Allowing the progression to continue is great, but that way you avoid over-inflation and can keep some sort of scale in place.

I agree - I'd prefer it if diminishing returns set in for everyone, since 1e AD&D M-Us and Clerics are still getting huge boosts from 10th-29th.

I don't think I have a fixed preference for number of levels. In 4e D&D progression is slow and very incremental, the 30 levels works well for a very big, meaty, long-term* campaign. In games where each level is a huge boost then I prefer fewer, I like 10 levels in 3e D&D and Pathfinder - the 11-20 levels feels too many, too far, too weird and unbalanced. Uncapped levels is ok in 1e AD&D, but the 14 levels of BX is also good for a more grounded game.

Hm... 4e's 30 levels has a similar scale to BX 14, 1e's first 12, 3e's first 10. They're all pretty much zero to superhero scale. It sounds as if 5e will be on a similar scale, maybe a bit lower powered. I like all those, whereas I'm not so keen on the 6 levels of E6 play, or the 5 levels of the Pathfinder Beginner Box, it feels a bit constrained.

*My level 1-30 4e campaign (everyone on same XP tally, it never resets) will run about 5 years of fortnightly play; we're on level 19 after something over 3 years. It's a great experience, but I don't plan on making 5-year campaigns my default. By contrast it looks like a typical level 1-15 Adventure Path takes around a year of fortnightly play.

Quote from: Haffrung;755366I frankly don't understand why 20 levels became some sort of standard for D&D.

20-sided die --> 20 level game? I dunno, gamers are pretty animistic at times and love linking their totems.

Put me down for "eternal progression possible, but with ever tapering benefits" as well. This can both satisfy the players' desire for the thrill of growing stronger while ensuring the game never levels out of control in terms of power.

No less than 5, no more than 20, and with diminishing returns.

I love the BECMI/RC 9HD cap.

And ACKS sold me on the idea of casting very high level classic D&D spells (7-9 for mages, 6-7 for clerics) as rituals.

I ran Pathfinder for an extended period a few years ago.
I ran a campaign up to about level 15 perhaps.

Personally I wasn't enjoying running PF much after level 11ish.
The characters were way over the top by then and too much to remember when running the game.

PF starts out very simple, but get very complicated later what with all the various abilities and advanced combat rules and as characters can do more obscure things.

I ran ADnD many years ago up to about level 16 I think, running Temple of elemental evil and all the other linked campaigns up to Killing Lolth in the demonweb pits.
Actually that was easier to run at high level than PF. So I probably wouldn't have minded continuing after that up to whatever.
But we decided to end the campaign after killing Lolth and we moved onto Rolemaster and Spacemaster after that.

I would say I stopped enjoying running Rolemaster at around the same level (up to around level 15) as well.
Spacemaster was ok to run at higher levels though as the power bloat wasn't as bad.

One of the advantages of unbounded levels (with seriously diminishing returns) is that many players have a mentality that the game should be geared towards them reaching max level.

If there's no max level, you can't have that expectation

Quote from: Bill;755356How many Levels do you like in your Level based rpgs?

All of them.

I like all the levels.

I'm not a huge fan of levels (or zero to hero), but if you have to have them, I like 4-7 meaningful levels with more possible but not directly contributing a whole lot.

I don't know if I will ever finish it, but I worked on a class/level system I could tolerate running and I had 5.

Novice
Apprentice
Journeyman
Master
Grandmaster

Additional levels were possible but didn't matter as much.