I would generally like to see more Dee-and-Dee-based games use level ranges to calibrate playstyle. Want a relatively low-powered, human-level experience? Use the E6 range. Tolkienish fantasy? E8. Want everyone to start out as competent adventurers? Begin on the 3rd level. Want heroes? Start on the 6th.

Personally, I like to make a system that delivers the type of gameplay I'm after. So, if six levels works well and plays how you want, why not.

For my (fantasy) clone the levels 4-16 are where PCs will spend most of their time, so a lot of work went into opening up options/ stuff for PCs to get involved in going beyond low level 'survival' mode.

Adding level mechanics wasn't the tricky, time-consuming part. Presenting/ offering PCs places/ events/ motivations that scale with level increases was much more work.

Quote from: Zachary The First;623687Yeah, I wouldn't have an issue. If I was really going to do long-term play instead of a shorter campaign arc, I might have to look at alternate progression, but that would be something I'd have plenty of time to work out. In short, not a deal-breaker.

This is one of the advantages of not using levels, long campaign arcs are much more focused on the plot, character development, setting and actual campaign than on advancing character powers. The idea that the game will run into problems just because the characters can't pick up new powers seems a bit too (meta)mechanically focused to me.

Quote from: Melan;624375I would generally like to see more Dee-and-Dee-based games use level ranges to calibrate playstyle. Want a relatively low-powered, human-level experience? Use the E6 range. Tolkienish fantasy? E8. Want everyone to start out as competent adventurers? Begin on the 3rd level. Want heroes? Start on the 6th.

Ya, I'm fine with thinking of levels in this way, especially in setting where the characters are head and shoulders above most. So it would be like this for players.  "Tonight we are playing a 10th level game.  Please roll up appropriate 10th level characters." That sort of thing.

Concerning the over all topic of the thread, I would rather a game compact 18 levels of AD&D1 into 6 levels, rather than just getting rid of the higher levels.  So, 6th level would be very powerful.  I use AD&D1 just as an example. I don't see any reason to dump all of those cool adventure options, when the intent is to streamline, increase campaign pace or facilitate more energetic one session adventures.  I enjoy the low levels, which is where we all have spent so much time, but one can always make adventures specific to a level range, as Melan suggests.

I would play a game that is only the standard 6th levels, though.  After all, the old Holmes edit book is just 3 levels, barely that really, and it can last and last.

Quote from: Melan;624375I would generally like to see more Dee-and-Dee-based games use level ranges to calibrate playstyle. Want a relatively low-powered, human-level experience? Use the E6 range. Tolkienish fantasy? E8. Want everyone to start out as competent adventurers? Begin on the 3rd level. Want heroes? Start on the 6th.

The idea was to keep the player characters within a reasonable power level. Stopping at 6 gave them enough room to become competent, but without getting especially powerful, so that exploration remained dangerous without having to resort to altered leveling like post-lvl9 in some versions of vintage D&D.

Quote from: J Arcane;623670I think 6 is actually a pretty good number the way the game is written, if you want to keep things low-powered, and there are optional rules in the back to go past that and keep getting new HP and to-hit bonus at least, but no new spells, and the present monster scaling kinda caps out at 8HD meaningfully speaking.

My Microlite74 Swords & Sorcery Edition only goes to level 6 and I haven't had any complaints. Like the E6 stuff for 3e there are ways to pick up additional stuff once you hit level 6, but your days of jumping to entirely new levels of power basically stop at level 6.

Quote from: Omnifray;623838You'll design a better game if your heart's in it 100%. 6 levels seems fine to me.

In fact, why not have half-levels so people can go up more slowly?

If you do that, your system now has eleven levels; Dungeoneering and Fighting both start at 1, and cap out at 6, for a total of ten increases. Add one for first level. Eleven.

I am currently tweaking the spell lists to scale with level by default, and I think between that, and the included "extended level" rules in the GM's section, that should be sufficient to allow for expansion beyond the lvl 6 baseline, while still keeping the same default, especially if I also tweak the monster stats a bit towards a 12 HD upper threshold.

Basically, as written, the formulas for statting monsters cap out with a maxed to-hit roll at 8d12 hit dice.  I am going to adjust the formulas a bit so that it hits that point at 12d12 instead.  This will make the lower level stuff feel a bit more properly low level, as the previous system used 10 as the baseline value for a lot of things, which made lvl 1 a very scary time indeed.  

On the flipside though, that may be a good thing ...

In reply to the OP:

Yes, I would play such a game.



Why?


Because gaining levels is never a goal of mine as a player.

I do not enjoy gross disparities in level/capability in the same group of characters however.

But I see no problem with a game going from level 1 to 6.

It is really an advantage in my opinion.

Quote from: Melan;624375I would generally like to see more Dee-and-Dee-based games use level ranges to calibrate playstyle. Want a relatively low-powered, human-level experience? Use the E6 range. Tolkienish fantasy? E8. Want everyone to start out as competent adventurers? Begin on the 3rd level. Want heroes? Start on the 6th.

See, honestly, no. I don't think that's the way to go.  I think the better way to go is to have a game that accommodates and accounts for different levels of experience, and then leaving it up to the GM to decide where he wants the cutoff to be in his campaign.  I think this makes for a much more useful game product.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;626229See, honestly, no. I don't think that's the way to go.  I think the better way to go is to have a game that accommodates and accounts for different levels of experience, and then leaving it up to the GM to decide where he wants the cutoff to be in his campaign.  I think this makes for a much more useful game product.

I thought he meant that the game would include guidelines for playing the game in the given ranges within a full game treatment.  Somewhat like a level free point based game where one selects the number of points available to buy features based upon the power level.  If it is as you described, ranges isolated in different products, that would be not so great, yes.

How it works is this:

All the classes are directly described up to level 6.  

"Spell" levels are provided up to level 3 or equivalent.

Monster Hit Die tables are tuned such as to hit a save of 20 at 12d12HD, but the upper limit is limited largely by whenever the math breaks and starts pumping out critters with all 20s.  

An optional rule is provided in the GM's chapter to advance characters beyond level 6, by providing guidelines on adding hit points, to-hit bonus, and additional spell points and stat points as said levels continue, though for simplicity's sake the level curve flattens from 7 on at 64k per, and there are still no additional spells beyond level 3 (though all spells now scale with levels somewhat, so they'll hopefully remain useful).

There is also an optional rule on handling stats higher than the default cap of 20.

Quote from: Kuroth;626231I thought he meant that the game would include guidelines for playing the game in the given ranges within a full game treatment.  Somewhat like a level free point based game where one selects the number of points available to buy features based upon the power level.  If it is as you described, ranges isolated in different products, that would be not so great, yes.

Correct. It has always been a possibility in D&D - but GM advice to this effect wasn't included in the game rules. OD&D and 1st edition at least acknowledged there was an endgame phase where things would slow down (name level, settling down and managing a barony), but others just assume "once an adventurer, always an adventurer", when there are actually pretty radical changes in the kind of play character power accommodates.

A lot of beef people have with D&D disappears once you start characters at 3rd level (where they aren't chewed up by aggressive housecats), and retire them at 9th or 12th (where they really start to run away with power, and serious balance issues start to crop up). Even "I can't make Conan" goes away when you understand that Conan is not a separate character class, he is a high-level PC.

But isn't this all obvious? In hindsight, it is. But it wasn't obvious to me until I learned it the hard way.

Many will rake me through the coals for saying this, but I consider it less than ideal game design, in general, to have too many 'levels'. Especially when you combine many levels with bad math.

For example, dndn nee dnot go to level 30.

Rolemaster need not go to level 50.



But, I am biased because I don't really like insane disparity in charcater power level.


10 'levels' is more than enough, in my opinion.