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 :D
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.
6. Or 14.
IIRC, in the Dragon, there is an adventure hook about high level characters going to hell to fight the devil(s); which at the time I thought was a pretty cool hook. So if I'm doing levels, yeah, give me a bunch.
It depends on how fast you level up, and the rate of character death.
In vanilla AD&D1e, hardly anyone would survive past 3rd level or so without a lot of DM fudging, and while levels 1-3 were got through quickly, from 4th to 5th was slower, from 5th to 6th was a crawl, so really anything above 6th or so was just a waste of paper.
But if characters survive well and xp is short, then by the time you get to 8th level or so, it's been a year of play, and you might be tired of it all and want to play something else.
If characters survive well and there's lots of xp, then the sky is the limit for levels...
Generally at high levels players start to get bored, because so few DMs have ever answered adequately the question, "But what do we do?" Even at 3rd level nobody has any interest in fighting orcs and zombies, it's just a lot of dice-rolling with no real uncertainty about the eventual outcome, now at 11th level...? How many Tiamats and Asmodeuses are there for us to kill?
Thus the AD&D1e assumption that about 9th level, you become a lord - and then you're playing a different game. That is, 9th level is enough.
For 3.x D&D, my preferred rate of advancement:
1st to 2d: 1 session
2nd to 3d: 2 sessions
3rd to 12th: 3 sessions each
12th - 13th: 4 sessions
13th on: time to wrap it up before the DM implodes.
Where 1 session = 4 hours, give or take.
Three sessions a month for about a year and then it's time to move on to new characters & maybe a new setting.
My campaigns usually topped out around level 12.
Depends on what you and the players want to do. Retire and become lords of the land? Journey to the netherworlds and slay demon kings? Commit genocide on a few Drow cities? Spread your god's faith across the continent in a holy war of conquest?
But heck, if the players are fine with cleaning out the environs around Fishingville and becoming mayor of the place at level 7, more power to them.
I'm enjoying the DCC 10 level system. I never realized just how fiddly and unwieldy D&D leveling was.
I like DCC's and ACKS's limits. For Dnd 0-2e 15th works out since we rarely got past 12th anyway for 3e I really suggest stopping at 12-15ish.
10 is good.
10 levels, except for elves. They go to 11.
I liked the unlimited nature of AD&D
The 20 limit of later versions seemed appropriate too.
14 levels seemed perfectly fine in BX.
Usually by the time you hit such lofty levels your character has done quite a bit and if they arent in the kingdom builder stage by now, may be ready for it.
Depending on the campaign.
Quote from: Doughdee222;755490My campaigns usually topped out around level 12.
As far as what levels actually get played:
My big high school 1e campaign went from 3rd to deity level, PCs with dozens of levels across multiple classes. Lots of solo play, it was a big deal when two high level PCs would team up to take on an enemy deity like Wotan or Druaga.
My first 3e campaign went to around 17th-18th level, but the system was terrible from about 11th on.
My subsequent 3e campaigns started at 1st and all topped out around 8th level, and often had a soft 10th level cap; NPCs maxed out at 9th-10th.
My first two 4e D&D campaigns went 1st-8th and 3rd-10th.
My current big 4e campaign has gone 1st-18th and will go to 30th unless I fall under a bus. :)
My online Labyrinth Lord/BX and 1e AD&D/OSRIC campaigns have tended to go from 1st to around 5th level, but my current OSRIC online game is Rise of the Runelords and should go much higher, somewhere in the teens is my guess, maybe 17th-18th.
My current Pathfinder Curse of the Crimson Throne game started at 2nd and should go to around 13th, to fit the Adventure Path.
I generally would like the system to accommodate characters a couple levels higher than the PCs are likely to reach; eg a 3e type game where the campaign runs to 8th level would suit having 10 levels of play.
I should have also said I care a lot about opinions on scaling; as in, you could have a dnd system where levels went to 10, and a level 10 character might be similar in 'power' to anything from a level 5 to a level 20 character in another version of dnd.
Essentially I don't think existing scaling is 'sacred' or 'ideal' just because it was printed in a book somewhere.
In fact, I consider it somewhat illogical.
I played one 2E game back in college where the remaining players reached 20th level. We all meet up again a few years later and did a one-shot with level 21 characters using the 3.x epic rules (just the fighter and me, the rogue).
We had lots of fun, but it was obvious after a while that we were ignoring or replacing rules and ideas we didn't like to the point that most of the high-level rules went unused. Since all of us had been DM at one point or another, there was a lot of agreement on what worked for our table and what did not.
Now, I much prefer games that top out around level 10. We don't even bother that much with ever-growing numbers. Just give me a few baubles for leveling up, some fun adventures and NPCs to interact with.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;755382Not 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.
Seconded. Ten is toward the lower end of what suits me, 20 is about my cap. 14 or 15 is nice for my needs.
Level 10 feels right. At that point you are already wondering why your party of adventurers would still bother being together as they are lords with their own agendas and set of henchmen. I know we were thinking of retirement of our characters at about level 12 with one player giving two of his characters up as NPCs so he could play something else. Racial limitations would also be much less severe then.
The highest I ever got a character to was 16 in 2nd ed. It was also a thief which has one of the fastest XP charts. Around level 12 he had his own thief's guild and so much money that it wasn't worth counting anymore.
Level 9-10 seemed like a good enough place to end characters, after that it just felt kinda dull to keep going unless we got into super exotic campaigns like planar travel or quests for immortality.
Quote from: Bionicspacejellyfish;755864The highest I ever got a character to was 16 in 2nd ed. It was also a thief which has one of the fastest XP charts. Around level 12 he had his own thief's guild and so much money that it wasn't worth counting anymore.
Level 9-10 seemed like a good enough place to end characters, after that it just felt kinda dull to keep going unless we got into super exotic campaigns like planar travel or quests for immortality.
If it's a Thief it makes sense hence my opinion that 15th for a Wizard is good. (I only play wizards, F/M or Bards in 2e sue me). 1e means I'm good with playing a Ranger also (I like bears). But not Bards.:)
Basically let the demihuman level limits get hit or go play DCC/ACKS where it doesn't mean a thing.
I would not find levels 1-10 (or 1-11) sufficient in standard D&D, myself.
However, in DCC I think 0-10 is acceptable, because really there is a change in the power level; a 5th level DCC character is a lot more powerful than a 5th level AD&D 1e character.
Quote from: RPGPundit;757195I would not find levels 1-10 (or 1-11) sufficient in standard D&D, myself.
However, in DCC I think 0-10 is acceptable, because really there is a change in the power level; a 5th level DCC character is a lot more powerful than a 5th level AD&D 1e character.
What are your thoughts on how levels are scaled?
Would 10 levels be more acceptable in dnd if a level 10 character was comparable to a level 20; idea being each level you gain could be beefier.
I guess I am questioning the need for lots of levels just to have them.
For example, Rolemaster has 50 levels, and it always felt a bit much even though I like that game system.
I like the scale in OD&D & B/X. Around 9th level the characters transition from wandering adventurers to the movers and shakers of the setting, being exceptional fighters/wizards/whatevers, and having amassed a ton of wealth. It just feels like a natural progression.
Palladium basically capped at level 15. Don't think I ever got a character beyond 5th level in there, with weekly play. I got my Pathfinder group to 6th level at standard xp, and boosted them to 9th by the end of the campaign. The totals they were generating by that point were getting scary.
In our current Star Wars game, we're at 8th level or so, and it's beginning to feel like we should all have glowing Caste marks on our brows or something.
Is it cheating to say one?
Edit: Now a real answer, around 15, with the last five having huge barriers of entry.
Quote from: Crabbyapples;757381Is it cheating to say one?
Edit: Now a real answer, around 15, with the last five having huge barriers of entry.
I prefer games without classes and levels, but as long as you have some kind of advancement a sort of level system ends up showing up. I like how Savage Worlds has levels (being a range of XP and being used for pre-requisites), but no classes as such. In Gurps or Hero, there are, admittedly fuzzy, grouping of points around certain power levels. And even Classic Traveller has the number of terms of service (though as they get too high, the power level can kind of go down).
The B/X progression, ending at level 14 for the humans. After that, it would be a bit to, um, "cosmic" for me.
It seems like there are two questions being conflated here:
a) How much power difference do you want between starting characters and maximum-advancement characters?
b) How finely-grained do you want the steps of power to be?
Personally, I've not had great experiences with characters advancing from ordinary to superheroic. So starting from D&D level 1, I'd prefer top advancement to be more like to a D&D level 10. However, those steps could be more finely grained - so I'd be fine with a level-based RPG that went from 1 to 20 where level 20 has power approximately like level 10 in AD&D.
Quote from: jhkim;757395It seems like there are two questions being conflated here:
a) How much power difference do you want between starting characters and maximum-advancement characters?
b) How finely-grained do you want the steps of power to be?
Personally, I've not had great experiences with characters advancing from ordinary to superheroic. So starting from D&D level 1, I'd prefer top advancement to be more like to a D&D level 10. However, those steps could be more finely grained - so I'd be fine with a level-based RPG that went from 1 to 20 where level 20 has power approximately like level 10 in AD&D.
That sounds good to me. If one wanted 'more' like mightier spells, they could customize them. But as a core game concept, I would probably enjoy it.
Or just make it ten levels.
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?
I frontload when I design in class/level games. my last one had level 2 at 750 exp, but the gain needed per level is built to get much slower after 5, and glacial after 10.
Quote from: LordVreeg;757460I frontload when I design in class/level games. my last one had level 2 at 750 exp, but the gain needed per level is built to get much slower after 5, and glacial after 10.
I absolutely hate that method. If you don't want to play at that level then don't put in any level for it. Don't go you can be level 15 if you get 45,000,000 experience points. It's pointless and could be argued by many as being vindictive.
Just do what ACKS or LL does make it 10 levels or do the 14 levels and spells above 6th are rituals with reachable points like maybe 500,000 exp total, it gives you a reason for an endgame it doesn't penalize racial level limits and it's relevant enough to try and actually accomplish as a goal.
3E/Pf play has really started to turn me off on levels...so, 50 levels, maybe, with a system so granular that a 1st level character won't be utterly overmatched by a 5th level character of the same type?
Quote from: Marleycat;757466I absolutely hate that method. If you don't want to play at that level then don't put in any level for it. Don't go you can be level 15 if you get 45,000,000 experience points. It's pointless and could be argued by many as being vindictive.
Just do what ACKS or LL does make it 10 levels or do the 14 levels and spells above 6th are rituals with reachable points like maybe 500,000 exp total, it gives you a reason for an endgame it doesn't penalize racial level limits and it's relevant enough to try and actually accomplish as a goal.
It's OK to hate it. 90% of my games are skill based, and they do what they are supposed to.
The experience amounts + rate of loss create the frequency distribution I want the world to have. The rules represent the physics engine of the world, as much as they exist to keep players happy. In a good game, they do both.
And this game is all humans, btw.
I would add that I would want to see an RPG supporting up to around 20 levels easily, but for the purposes of supporting powerful NPCs, rather than for PCs to progress to.
A level 1 character ought to be a threat to a level 10 character. Maybe not a deadly threat, but enough that a 10 fighting four or six level 1 guys shouldn't be an autokill.
Quote from: Bill;757350What are your thoughts on how levels are scaled?
Would 10 levels be more acceptable in dnd if a level 10 character was comparable to a level 20; idea being each level you gain could be beefier.
I guess I am questioning the need for lots of levels just to have them.
Well, in a way it remains to be seen, because the most powerful guys in my DCC game are currently (after a year of bi-monthly play) at about level 3-4. But I think that I'm ok with either 20 levels or 11, so long as they are playable all throughout.
RC D&D goes to level 36, and having played a campaign there from level 1 to level 36, I would say that the game is playable really well up to about level 20-25, but for the last 10 levels or so it is really not working very well. And I say that as a huge huge fan of the Rules Cyclopedia.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Coffee Zombie;757379Palladium basically capped at level 15. Don't think I ever got a character beyond 5th level in there, with weekly play. I got my Pathfinder group to 6th level at standard xp, and boosted them to 9th by the end of the campaign. The totals they were generating by that point were getting scary.
I ran a palladium game that lasted almost 9 years of weekly play; undoubtedly the longest-running campaign I ever did. By the end of it, the highest level guy was I think around level 12.
It leads you to kind of wonder what the point is in having levels to 15 if its almost impossible to get there without cheating.
Quote from: RPGPundit;757951I ran a palladium game that lasted almost 9 years of weekly play; undoubtedly the longest-running campaign I ever did. By the end of it, the highest level guy was I think around level 12.
It leads you to kind of wonder what the point is in having levels to 15 if its almost impossible to get there without cheating.
That's my thought also. If you put in 10/15/50 levels or whatever you should have the option to reach said levels in a year or maybe 2 years if you're playing in a weekly game. Of course you could go for slower advancement tracks but that should be your choice not a choice the system bakes into the rules.
With 27 levels, you can have vampires biting all over you and not break a sweat. :D
Quote from: Marleycat;757953That's my thought also. If you put in 10/15/50 levels or whatever you should have the option to reach said levels in a year or maybe 2 years if you're playing in a weekly game. Of course you could go for slower advancement tracks but that should be your choice not a choice the system bakes into the rules.
Two years weekly or four years fortnightly to reach the level cap sounds about right to me. I don't much like the 3e D&D & Pathfinder thing of reaching the cap in one year of weekly play. My current Pathfinder game has been levelling up every 2 sessions and that feels awfully fast; it'd be 38 sessions to reach the level 20 cap.
I like games where characters visibly develop in many small steps instead of fewer, larger ones, so for me, the frequency of gaining new levels depend on the issue if characters can gain some features between levels. If so, I am completely happy with very rare and slow level proceeding; if not, I am in favor of many levels and a quicker progression.
I prefer 10 levels.
In the paradigm of D&D 3rd edition/Pathfinder/d20 I am a fan of either:
10 levels
Or
6 levels plus epic feats (E6)
This makes the worst scaling problems with things like spell DCs and attribute bonuses outside of the range of the game.
In AD&D, or B/X era D&D, I prefer the levels 1 to 8 dungeon exploration game followed by about a level 9-15 high level political/domain game. The better balance of spells (much harder to get off, better risk profile for things like teleport) does a lot to make this work better, as does the generally simpler math.
I might play D&D 4E for 30 levels, but the auto scaling features that make this possible are not ideal.
Curious as to have the 5th edition will work out