Leveling Overhaul [Archive] - Wizards Community

Leveling Overhaul [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Kurikin
04-07-07, 06:40 PM I like the way you level your character in the game Fable so I've been working on a way to level a character like in the game. For those of you who haven't played the game, instead of leveling up everything as a whole, you level up each thing separately.

Everything is broken up into 6 different groups, which you level up separately. They are Arcane, Divine, Ranged, Melee, Toughness and Skill.

For some reason this picture will only show up as a link.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e383/kurikin/tables.jpg

Experience/Effective Level

In the table in the picture linked the experience table is broken up into 3 collums. The first shows the xp cost to level up Melee, Ranged, Skill and Toughness. The Second shows the costs for Arcane and Divine. The third shows what your effective level is for how much experience you have.

Feats/Class Features

Feats and class features are folded together, like in the Generic variant from UA except all class features are available.

At 0 level you have no feats except proficiency with a simple weapon of your choice.

Every time your effective level increases you gain a feat.

Arcane/Divine
Your caster level is separate for both and is equal to your level in each.

Spells per day and known are the same as Sorcerer or Wizard (you pick) for Arcane and the same as Druid or Cleric for Divine.

Ranged/Melee
Your BAB is separate for both and is equal to your level in each and you get a bonus to damage equal to 1/2 your level in each.

Skill

At level 0 you get (4 + int mod) x 3 skill points and at each additional level you get (4 + int mod) more.

Your max ranks in a skill is your effective level + 3 or your level in Skill + 3, whichever is higher.

Toughness

At level 0 you have (4 + con mod) health and at each level you gain (1d8 + con mod) more.

You assign each save to Great, Good or Poor. Save bonuses are in the table in the picture linked.
Kurikin
04-09-07, 10:15 PM Made a bunch of changes to the format and how the system works
starfire311
04-10-07, 10:02 AM your link isnt working on my PC at work, but that could be because it is my PC at work.

anyway, so what you are saying is that each time you level you cna choose which of the 6 it goes into, sounds ok to me, good luck getting playes to go for it.
Ra-Tiel
04-10-07, 12:13 PM I like the way you level your character in the game Fable so I've been working on a way to level a character like in the game. For those of you who haven't played the game, instead of leveling up everything as a whole, you level up each thing separately. [...]
You may want to check this (http://mxpb.wikispaces.com/) out. Found the link here on the boards some time ago, and it quite well describes what you suggested.

However, in my opinion such a levelling mechanic requires you to redo almost all of the system. With such a "unbound" progression of all abilities (CL, saves, attack bonuses, skills, feats, ...) the DM can make no assumption on what his party would be able to accomplish, and this basically ruins the CR system. A given CR just assumes the PCs' saves have a certain level, or the tank can hit with a minimum attack bonus, the wizard has a minimum bonus to beat SR, and so on. This all goes out of the window, and what in normal DnD would be a challenging opponent, could lead up to a TPK because the characters' saves are too weak to resist the enemy, or the party lacked CL, spell levels, or BAB to effectively damage the opposition.

On the other hand, if you would redesign the whole system around this mechanic (including the monsters), I can imagine it to be a very cool experience, leading to more "realistic" characters. Just my :twocents: . :)

--------- PS ---------
For some reason this picture will only show up as a link. [...]
This is because the [img] tag is disabled in this forum. Just scroll down to below the "quick reply" box, and you'll find a section labelled "posting rules". In there you can see what stuff is allowed, such as posting images or using HTML code.
Raiden Drake
04-10-07, 03:51 PM You may want to check this (http://mxpb.wikispaces.com/) out. Found the link here on the boards some time ago, and it quite well describes what you suggested.

However, in my opinion such a levelling mechanic requires you to redo almost all of the system. With such a "unbound" progression of all abilities (CL, saves, attack bonuses, skills, feats, ...) the DM can make no assumption on what his party would be able to accomplish, and this basically ruins the CR system. A given CR just assumes the PCs' saves have a certain level, or the tank can hit with a minimum attack bonus, the wizard has a minimum bonus to beat SR, and so on. This all goes out of the window, and what in normal DnD would be a challenging opponent, could lead up to a TPK because the characters' saves are too weak to resist the enemy, or the party lacked CL, spell levels, or BAB to effectively damage the opposition.

On the other hand, if you would redesign the whole system around this mechanic (including the monsters), I can imagine it to be a very cool experience, leading to more "realistic" characters. Just my :twocents: . :)

--------- PS ---------

This is because the [img] tag is disabled in this forum. Just scroll down to below the "quick reply" box, and you'll find a section labelled "posting rules". In there you can see what stuff is allowed, such as posting images or using HTML code.

I dont think u really need to redesign the whole system, im thinking of "virtual levels"

If u have for example 3000XP u are the equivalent of a character level 3, even if u only have one hit dice, all numeric values(spells CL, special abilities saves, etc) that are based on you level( or HD, etc) use this "virtual level".
That could work, dont u think?
Ra-Tiel
04-10-07, 04:06 PM I dont think u really need to redesign the whole system, im thinking of "virtual levels"

If u have for example 3000XP u are the equivalent of a character level 3, even if u only have one hit dice, all numeric values(spells CL, special abilities saves, etc) that are based on you level use this "virtual level".
That could work, dont u think?
Well, no. The "typical" party consists of the "Fantastic 4" ( :P ) tank, healer, blaster, and skill monkey.

A "typical" tank will have an attack bonus at least equal to his level, usually much higher.

A "typical" healer will have a larger arsenal of powerful healing and buff spells, lasting for a number of rounds/minutes equal to his level.

A "typical" skill monkey will have many usefull survival/social/dungeoneering skills at level+3 ranks, as well as a supporting class abilities.

A "typical" blaster will have a CL equal to his level, as well as a quite large selection of support/utility/debuff/battlefield control spells.

All party members, however, will have a number of HD equal to their level, strong saves equal to at least 2+1/2 level, and weak saves equal to at least 1/3 level.

These are the typical assumptions made by the CR system. But with a free system this breaks down. Now suddenly, a character's weak save could be "1/3 * (level - 5)", or his skill ranks could be "level - 2" behind because he wanted to improve his BAB. Also, CR 3 is already the region where 1 HD characters are killed in one blow (ogre, 2d8+7; or scorching ray, 4d6).

The normal level system guarantees a certain degree of "suvivability" of characters. If you unbind HD, saves, CL, and BAB you take away this guarantee. Therefore, at least imho, such a mechanic can't work together with the normal CR system.
Kurikin
04-10-07, 05:00 PM Mostly what I think the system relies on is that each player will assume a needed roll and spend his xp to fit that roll.

So the typical fighter/archer will spend 40% of his xp on having a full BAB, another 40% on his saves and health and the final 20% on skills.

At 20th level he would have a full BAB with melee or ranged weapons, +10 on damage rolls, a large amount of health and 17x (4 + int mod) for skills.

Really the only negative effect is that it makes it so a guy who has only used melee or ranged weapons all his life can't pick up the other type and be just as good. I like it better this way because it is WAY more realistic.

To prevent TPKs if your DMing with this system then it just makes you look more at what exactly your player's abilities are (which you should be doing anyways.)

Maybe for the whole HD problem have you gain an extra (1d4 + con mod) health for every Total Level you have. Then your HD would be determined by adding up the 2nd number on all the dice and dividing it by 10 or 12.

So with this, if you had 20 levels in toughness and you were effectively level 20 you would effectively have 24HD if you divide by 10 and 20!!!! if you divide by 12.
Raiden Drake
04-10-07, 08:01 PM I was talking about the link that Ra-Tiel gave... I actually didn't understand yours.

I still don't think u need to remake the system, if a players upgrades only his BAB, is his own fault if i throw at him a save or die spell and he cant make the save. Besides I'll be lying if I say that I don't tailor encounters according to what the party is capable, although I some times throw some odd ball just to take them off balance.

Is possible also to determine how much "XP" (build points, whatever) is wort an enemy by reverse engineering his stats and abilities that way u can compare the average XP of your party against the average XP of the enemies, that should give u pretty balanced fights.
Ra-Tiel
04-11-07, 01:05 AM I was talking about the link that Ra-Tiel gave... I actually didn't understand yours.
Oh, sorry. Well, I didn't make that system, I just found the link and thought it might be helpful to the original poster.

I still don't think u need to remake the system, if a players upgrades only his BAB, is his own fault if i throw at him a save or die spell and he cant make the save. Besides I'll be lying if I say that I don't tailor encounters according to what the party is capable, although I some times throw some odd ball just to take them off balance.
Of course, but not all DMs have the time to customize every single encounter the party faces. Sometimes the party's actions lead to combats the DM didn't plan, or the party tries to fight something it should rather run from.

In these cases, the CR system provides a good starting point for the DM for random encounters, or to put up a quick fight with an appropriate monster if things go wrong somehow - without having him to skim through a dozen monster entries and parse every single one of them for details.

In now way I'm saying that a DM should not look at the monster beforehand and familiarize himself with it to run the combat smoothly, but he should also not spoonfeed the party every victory by never pitting them against a monster which has some really effective defenses or offenses the party has no perfect defense against.

Is possible also to determine how much "XP" (build points, whatever) is wort an enemy by reverse engineering his stats and abilities that way u can compare the average XP of your party against the average XP of the enemies, that should give u pretty balanced fights.
This would basically remove almost all outsiders and dragons from the range of possible enemies. Just look at the planetar, for example. He has 14 HD, casts as a 17th level cleric, spell resistance 30, a bunch of resistances and immunities, no ability score below 19, damage resistance 10/evil, many spell like abilities, and so on. Most things you cannot reverse engineer into character stats, and the things you can reverse engineer would put that outsider at a range far above "CR" 20. Same thing for most dragons.
Raiden Drake
04-11-07, 04:06 AM This would basically remove almost all outsiders and dragons from the range of possible enemies. Just look at the planetar, for example. He has 14 HD, casts as a 17th level cleric, spell resistance 30, a bunch of resistances and immunities, no ability score below 19, damage resistance 10/evil, many spell like abilities, and so on. Most things you cannot reverse engineer into character stats, and the things you can reverse engineer would put that outsider at a range far above "CR" 20. Same thing for most dragons.

mmm... I guess u are right... although remember that ECL is not the same as CR, witch is usually a lot lower that the ECL. What we really need is some playtesting and a some number crunching, I'll see what can i do and let u know in a couple of days...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kurikin 04-07-07, 06:40 PM	I like the way you level your character in the game Fable so I've been working on a way to level a character like in the game. For those of you who haven't played the game, instead of leveling up everything as a whole, you level up each thing separately. Everything is broken up into 6 different groups, which you level up separately. They are Arcane, Divine, Ranged, Melee, Toughness and Skill. For some reason this picture will only show up as a link. http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e383/kurikin/tables.jpg Experience/Effective Level In the table in the picture linked the experience table is broken up into 3 collums. The first shows the xp cost to level up Melee, Ranged, Skill and Toughness. The Second shows the costs for Arcane and Divine. The third shows what your effective level is for how much experience you have. Feats/Class Features Feats and class features are folded together, like in the Generic variant from UA except all class features are available. At 0 level you have no feats except proficiency with a simple weapon of your choice. Every time your effective level increases you gain a feat. Arcane/Divine Your caster level is separate for both and is equal to your level in each. Spells per day and known are the same as Sorcerer or Wizard (you pick) for Arcane and the same as Druid or Cleric for Divine. Ranged/Melee Your BAB is separate for both and is equal to your level in each and you get a bonus to damage equal to 1/2 your level in each. Skill At level 0 you get (4 + int mod) x 3 skill points and at each additional level you get (4 + int mod) more. Your max ranks in a skill is your effective level + 3 or your level in Skill + 3, whichever is higher. Toughness At level 0 you have (4 + con mod) health and at each level you gain (1d8 + con mod) more. You assign each save to Great, Good or Poor. Save bonuses are in the table in the picture linked.
Kurikin 04-09-07, 10:15 PM	Made a bunch of changes to the format and how the system works
starfire311 04-10-07, 10:02 AM	your link isnt working on my PC at work, but that could be because it is my PC at work. anyway, so what you are saying is that each time you level you cna choose which of the 6 it goes into, sounds ok to me, good luck getting playes to go for it.
Ra-Tiel 04-10-07, 12:13 PM	I like the way you level your character in the game Fable so I've been working on a way to level a character like in the game. For those of you who haven't played the game, instead of leveling up everything as a whole, you level up each thing separately. [...] You may want to check this (http://mxpb.wikispaces.com/) out. Found the link here on the boards some time ago, and it quite well describes what you suggested. However, in my opinion such a levelling mechanic requires you to redo almost all of the system. With such a "unbound" progression of all abilities (CL, saves, attack bonuses, skills, feats, ...) the DM can make no assumption on what his party would be able to accomplish, and this basically ruins the CR system. A given CR just assumes the PCs' saves have a certain level, or the tank can hit with a minimum attack bonus, the wizard has a minimum bonus to beat SR, and so on. This all goes out of the window, and what in normal DnD would be a challenging opponent, could lead up to a TPK because the characters' saves are too weak to resist the enemy, or the party lacked CL, spell levels, or BAB to effectively damage the opposition. On the other hand, if you would redesign the whole system around this mechanic (including the monsters), I can imagine it to be a very cool experience, leading to more "realistic" characters. Just my :twocents: . :) --------- PS --------- For some reason this picture will only show up as a link. [...] This is because the [img] tag is disabled in this forum. Just scroll down to below the "quick reply" box, and you'll find a section labelled "posting rules". In there you can see what stuff is allowed, such as posting images or using HTML code.
Raiden Drake 04-10-07, 03:51 PM	You may want to check this (http://mxpb.wikispaces.com/) out. Found the link here on the boards some time ago, and it quite well describes what you suggested. However, in my opinion such a levelling mechanic requires you to redo almost all of the system. With such a "unbound" progression of all abilities (CL, saves, attack bonuses, skills, feats, ...) the DM can make no assumption on what his party would be able to accomplish, and this basically ruins the CR system. A given CR just assumes the PCs' saves have a certain level, or the tank can hit with a minimum attack bonus, the wizard has a minimum bonus to beat SR, and so on. This all goes out of the window, and what in normal DnD would be a challenging opponent, could lead up to a TPK because the characters' saves are too weak to resist the enemy, or the party lacked CL, spell levels, or BAB to effectively damage the opposition. On the other hand, if you would redesign the whole system around this mechanic (including the monsters), I can imagine it to be a very cool experience, leading to more "realistic" characters. Just my :twocents: . :) --------- PS --------- This is because the [img] tag is disabled in this forum. Just scroll down to below the "quick reply" box, and you'll find a section labelled "posting rules". In there you can see what stuff is allowed, such as posting images or using HTML code. I dont think u really need to redesign the whole system, im thinking of "virtual levels" If u have for example 3000XP u are the equivalent of a character level 3, even if u only have one hit dice, all numeric values(spells CL, special abilities saves, etc) that are based on you level( or HD, etc) use this "virtual level". That could work, dont u think?
Ra-Tiel 04-10-07, 04:06 PM	I dont think u really need to redesign the whole system, im thinking of "virtual levels" If u have for example 3000XP u are the equivalent of a character level 3, even if u only have one hit dice, all numeric values(spells CL, special abilities saves, etc) that are based on you level use this "virtual level". That could work, dont u think? Well, no. The "typical" party consists of the "Fantastic 4" ( :P ) tank, healer, blaster, and skill monkey. A "typical" tank will have an attack bonus at least equal to his level, usually much higher. A "typical" healer will have a larger arsenal of powerful healing and buff spells, lasting for a number of rounds/minutes equal to his level. A "typical" skill monkey will have many usefull survival/social/dungeoneering skills at level+3 ranks, as well as a supporting class abilities. A "typical" blaster will have a CL equal to his level, as well as a quite large selection of support/utility/debuff/battlefield control spells. All party members, however, will have a number of HD equal to their level, strong saves equal to at least 2+1/2 level, and weak saves equal to at least 1/3 level. These are the typical assumptions made by the CR system. But with a free system this breaks down. Now suddenly, a character's weak save could be "1/3 * (level - 5)", or his skill ranks could be "level - 2" behind because he wanted to improve his BAB. Also, CR 3 is already the region where 1 HD characters are killed in one blow (ogre, 2d8+7; or scorching ray, 4d6). The normal level system guarantees a certain degree of "suvivability" of characters. If you unbind HD, saves, CL, and BAB you take away this guarantee. Therefore, at least imho, such a mechanic can't work together with the normal CR system.
Kurikin 04-10-07, 05:00 PM	Mostly what I think the system relies on is that each player will assume a needed roll and spend his xp to fit that roll. So the typical fighter/archer will spend 40% of his xp on having a full BAB, another 40% on his saves and health and the final 20% on skills. At 20th level he would have a full BAB with melee or ranged weapons, +10 on damage rolls, a large amount of health and 17x (4 + int mod) for skills. Really the only negative effect is that it makes it so a guy who has only used melee or ranged weapons all his life can't pick up the other type and be just as good. I like it better this way because it is WAY more realistic. To prevent TPKs if your DMing with this system then it just makes you look more at what exactly your player's abilities are (which you should be doing anyways.) Maybe for the whole HD problem have you gain an extra (1d4 + con mod) health for every Total Level you have. Then your HD would be determined by adding up the 2nd number on all the dice and dividing it by 10 or 12. So with this, if you had 20 levels in toughness and you were effectively level 20 you would effectively have 24HD if you divide by 10 and 20!!!! if you divide by 12.
Raiden Drake 04-10-07, 08:01 PM	I was talking about the link that Ra-Tiel gave... I actually didn't understand yours. I still don't think u need to remake the system, if a players upgrades only his BAB, is his own fault if i throw at him a save or die spell and he cant make the save. Besides I'll be lying if I say that I don't tailor encounters according to what the party is capable, although I some times throw some odd ball just to take them off balance. Is possible also to determine how much "XP" (build points, whatever) is wort an enemy by reverse engineering his stats and abilities that way u can compare the average XP of your party against the average XP of the enemies, that should give u pretty balanced fights.
Ra-Tiel 04-11-07, 01:05 AM	I was talking about the link that Ra-Tiel gave... I actually didn't understand yours. Oh, sorry. Well, I didn't make that system, I just found the link and thought it might be helpful to the original poster. I still don't think u need to remake the system, if a players upgrades only his BAB, is his own fault if i throw at him a save or die spell and he cant make the save. Besides I'll be lying if I say that I don't tailor encounters according to what the party is capable, although I some times throw some odd ball just to take them off balance. Of course, but not all DMs have the time to customize every single encounter the party faces. Sometimes the party's actions lead to combats the DM didn't plan, or the party tries to fight something it should rather run from. In these cases, the CR system provides a good starting point for the DM for random encounters, or to put up a quick fight with an appropriate monster if things go wrong somehow - without having him to skim through a dozen monster entries and parse every single one of them for details. In now way I'm saying that a DM should not look at the monster beforehand and familiarize himself with it to run the combat smoothly, but he should also not spoonfeed the party every victory by never pitting them against a monster which has some really effective defenses or offenses the party has no perfect defense against. Is possible also to determine how much "XP" (build points, whatever) is wort an enemy by reverse engineering his stats and abilities that way u can compare the average XP of your party against the average XP of the enemies, that should give u pretty balanced fights. This would basically remove almost all outsiders and dragons from the range of possible enemies. Just look at the planetar, for example. He has 14 HD, casts as a 17th level cleric, spell resistance 30, a bunch of resistances and immunities, no ability score below 19, damage resistance 10/evil, many spell like abilities, and so on. Most things you cannot reverse engineer into character stats, and the things you can reverse engineer would put that outsider at a range far above "CR" 20. Same thing for most dragons.
Raiden Drake 04-11-07, 04:06 AM	This would basically remove almost all outsiders and dragons from the range of possible enemies. Just look at the planetar, for example. He has 14 HD, casts as a 17th level cleric, spell resistance 30, a bunch of resistances and immunities, no ability score below 19, damage resistance 10/evil, many spell like abilities, and so on. Most things you cannot reverse engineer into character stats, and the things you can reverse engineer would put that outsider at a range far above "CR" 20. Same thing for most dragons. mmm... I guess u are right... although remember that ECL is not the same as CR, witch is usually a lot lower that the ECL. What we really need is some playtesting and a some number crunching, I'll see what can i do and let u know in a couple of days...