Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 wolvenreign Jul 12, 2011 12:11:00	So, maybe a lot of people are used to this incredibly slow character progression. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse with this, but just hear me out. I'm playing in a LFR campaign. One of those official ones run by the game stores on Wednesdays. I'm playing a Shardmind Psion with a telepath focus. It's fun and all. It's just that...it takes 10 weeks to get a level. 10 WEEKS. Are you kidding me? I'm level 3 now, so getting to level 11 (where I can actually get a Paragon Path) will take me 80 weeks. And even then, I could get killed, in or out of character, before I ever get to experience it. (Same goes for getting up to my ED.) Now, isn't this just a tad bit ridiculous? Just a little? By the time I max two interesting characters (assuming I actually go to each and every LFR game, which is quite generous), it will have consumed 600 weeks of my life. Pretty sure we'll be damn close to 5th edition eleven years from now. (600 weeks = approximately 11 years) Don't get me wrong; I love long campaigns, honestly. I could tolerate this XP rate if it was a 72-hour D&D marathon (which I hope to experience someday).  Doesn't it seem like a fair bit of a waste of material to only be able to max one character per 300 weeks (5 years)? Aren't there other character concepts to move on to, to try out, finish their stories, and move on? Before anyone hops on me with the "GTFO MMO MENTALITY NOOB", I've been around since 2nd edition, and back then we would always play one adventure a day, and level up. 20 days was reasonable to max out a character. It had enough sense of scale and immersion, and we could move on to another class and concept after that. It was cool. At any rate, I would hope the speed of the "official" campaigns would speed up. I'm sure I'm not the only one that doesn't have 5 LITERAL YEARS to max a character.
#2 The_Silversword Jul 13, 2011 5:11:03	So, just play in more LFR games, its my understading that you can use the same character for multiple games. Or, just start up or join up a home game and play, and gain XP as often as youd like.
#3 wolvenreign Jul 13, 2011 9:38:54	So, just play in more LFR games, its my understading that you can use the same character for multiple games. Or, just start up or join up a home game and play, and gain XP as often as youd like. Well, the problem with joining another LFR game is that they're all sanctioned to happen around the same time. Wednesday at 6, everywhere. It's some strange WoTC thing. I am considering joining a home game, though. No way in hell am I going to wait 5 literal years to finish this character.
#4 Jorunhast Jul 13, 2011 10:15:28	No offense meant, but I have to ask: Do you like playing, just generally, for the social aspect and the overall enjoyment of roleplay?  Or is it more about enjoying the powers and abilities, and the -things- you can do with characters generally? There's no right answer here, I'm just underscoring that there are indeed different types of games and different types of players.  Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Realms, tends to DM with a very, very slow "progression" of XP.  For him and his players, and indeed for most of us who cut their teeth on the 1st edition AD&D, it would literally take years (even with regular, marathon play) to level up to 3rd or 4th level.  My own games tend to be roleplay immersion, and XP light. With 2E, and I'd argue even more with 3E, XP and leveling were remodeled in the base game to be a LOT faster.  Those gamers who play because they like fiddling about to get the best character stats and most "effective" power combinations/abilities, they liked the increased XP speed.  Those who preferred immersion didn't find it to be believable (because of their expectations and experience with AD&D). But again, this isn't a question of what's "correct" or "best" because there's an underlying assumption there that there's really only one right way to do things in D&D.  Truthfully, it's about individual preferences. At the end of the day, it's about what you like, not what's "right"... because there is no "right way" when it comes to a question like this.  It's more about finding the style of play that matches your own interests and preferences.
#5 wolvenreign Jul 13, 2011 11:02:38	I really do enjoy the roleplay aspect, probably a lot more than many in my community. I want the opportunity to talk about where my chracter came from, what he's doing, and what he's striving for. Everyone I speak to says, "No one cares about that crap. Just use minor interactions and move on to the next fight scene.". I think that's the sort of mentality that spawned the horrific abomination (IMO) that was D&D Encounters.  Now, the problem here is two fold. The game I'm running with has little to no opportunity for roleplay. I don't get to involve my character, have emotional scenes, grand revelations about the universe...it's just shoving off to the next encounter. A shame, too, since I had come up with an interesting spin on the God Shard philosophy, as well as an origin for it involving Deva purposely cultivating a Shardmind at the bottom of the Astral Sea. The next problem is that I have roleplay ideas for how this particular character changes over the course of the tiers, and I really don't want to be stuck playing just one tier for too long, ESPECIALLY when the roleplay is little-to-non-existant. From heroic tier, he is intelligent and curious, but arrogant and deceitful. He deigns to gather power, but more than that, he needs to collect the thoughts of those around him, to find the lowest common denomenator in the universe. With this, he hopes to come ever closer to finding the First Cause, the first movement in existence, it's purpose and it's origin. One of his more interesting tricks is how he endears himself to different party members. Because he uses telepathy only as his form of communication, he is always in whispering contact with them. He never needs to speak out loud, or emit a telepathic "shout". He makes each party member view him differently, albeit favorably. In Paragon tier, he has awakened to a part of his potential. Having collected the thoughts of those around him, both enemy and ally, having felt the death wails of many minds, his personality becomes a fair hair more shattered. At times, his dream form (dreamwalker) will take the form of someone he recently killed, or one of his allies that he saw fall. This isn't because he is mourning them, rather, his thoughts are simply obsessed with the most urgent, violent thought of all; the thought of dying. Near the end of Paragon Tier (level 20), his body begins to glow with an unearthly light, and rays of colors shoot out (no effect, just cosmetic) of his body like those of a prism. He is able to manifest his true dream form, a huge, crystalline leviathan, which rises out of his manifestation of the crystal sea. This is a herald of what will happen the very next level, showing that he is on the brink of discovery, his power nearly to the point of overflowing. As soon as he hits Epic Tier, his body enters an uncontrollable Shard Swarm. The various parts of his consciousness which make up his body are experiencing the perception of the First Cause. The shards revolve around his body like the planets in the solar system, until his Crytalline Leviathan rises from the astral sea to swallow him whole. His existence is wiped from this universe, but in another one, he has become the Creator. After shaping a new world in his image, he realizes something isn't right. His power to create is not complete; facets of reality melt and dissipate before his eyes, and abberations from the Far Realm easily pierce the veil of his incomplete universe. Something is missing, and he must return to that other world to find it. He is the Demiurge, and his name, previously Astal, has changed into Endsign. Sorry, I know that was a little off-topic, but what I'm trying to say here is that I have a lot of aspects to roleplay him with, but (A) little to no time to do it and (B) do not want to be stuck with one aspect for too long. Besides, I have other character concepts I want to play as well. My environment is hardly immersive, as well. We play 3 hours, every week. It's supposed to be 4, but that never happens. Most of it is eaten up by combat. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, it's just that I would prefer more roleplay. Even then, though, if you're going to focus on the combat, why make us use the same powers for 10 weeks in a row? So anyway. I actually do prefer the roleplay aspect, honestly, but I think in this case, the slower xp requirement hurts the game as opposed to making it more immersive.
#6 Mirtek Jul 13, 2011 11:46:47	The rate of leveling is 2 games played on high or three games played on low. That's very fast compared to previous editions and previous living campaigns. Also that all LFR happens on Wednesday night is not a WotC thing. LFR can happen any time, it's only Encounters that WotC only allows to be played on Wednesdays why make us use the same powers for 10 weeks in a row? Because they are not making you use the same powers for two weeks, as you gain new powers every second week.
#7 wolvenreign Jul 13, 2011 12:04:57	If only that were the case, my good friend! Alas, my DM has admitted that he wants to level us every 10 encounters.  I would be all for it having a level every two weeks, which is perfectly modest and acceptable. I suppose I had assumed that my DM was following WoTC's orders. Probably because he SAID he was following WoTC. (Not saying you're wrong, that's just what he did.) Ah, by the way, just for reference (because this would be rather appreciated), could you show me where it says every two weeks? I'd like to show it to him.
#8 Mirtek Jul 13, 2011 12:42:50	If only that were the case, my good friend! Alas, my DM has admitted that he wants to level us every 10 encounters. Than he is not running a LFR campaign. Ah, by the way, just for reference (because this would be rather appreciated), could you show me where it says every two weeks? I'd like to show it to him. Not every two weeks, every two adventures (which equals 2 weeks if you play one adventure per week) if you play on high or every three if you play on low (but that's only a rule of thumb, can also be every 2.x and every 3.x adventures respectively or you might get a level with a single adventure if you play a special on high). As to where you can read it, the character advancement table is on page 29 in the PHB and how much XP an LFR adventure is worth is written at the end section of each LFR adventure.   If your DM is deliberately giving you less XP than you would normally receive he is also making your character illegal as LFR characters, which can mean that you could be disallowed to participate at other official LFR tables if someone checks your play history and notices that your character played many more LFR adventures than should be possible at his level (due to the DM giving out too few XP)
#9 wolvenreign Jul 13, 2011 12:48:47	Mm, see, therin lies the problem. He's fracturing up the adventures too much. It took us 4 weeks to finish one adventure. Edit: Come to think of it, I think I know the source of the problem. See, he used to run Encounters, but declined on the next season. An Encounter game lasted 4 hours, because it was one encounter. In order to finish entire adventures, however, you need a longer time span. So I might just have to talk to him about starting the game earlier, thus moving it out of an Encounters time frame and into an adventure time frame.
#10 Mirtek Jul 13, 2011 12:55:20	Mm, see, therin lies the problem. He's fracturing up the adventures too much. It took us 4 weeks to finish one adventure. Edit: Come to think of it, I think I know the source of the problem. See, he used to run Encounters, but declined on the next season. An Encounter game lasted 4 hours, because it was one encounter. In order to finish entire adventures, however, you need a longer time span. So I might just have to talk to him about starting the game earlier, thus moving it out of an Encounters time frame and into an adventure time frame. No, the LFR adventures are written for 4h (as opposed to Encounters adventures which are supposed to be over in only app. 1.5h per Wednesday session), some double rounders are supposed to be 8h. If you forego all roleplay and just do the fights you should finish much earlier than 4h. At the moment I am at a loss imagining how your DM manages to spread them out that long while also ignoring any roleplay.
#11 wolvenreign Jul 13, 2011 13:09:01	Could be the 15 players at our table.
#12 Jorunhast Jul 13, 2011 13:19:57	That's a huge number of players at a single table... wow.  I'm with Mirtek, I don't think he's running an official RPGA adventure.  But maybe he's taken an LFR module and adapted it?  I don't know, it's hard to say. But in either case, it really sounds like a home game (rather than a hobby store game) might be more for you.  When things are run at stores, I find that (and this is just my experience with 2 stores), it's all about the encounter.  If you want deep story, and lots of roleplay, the setting of someone's home is better IMO. Plus, you don't have to fit into a "module" type of role, where stats and powers are chosen/used for maximum bonuses and efficiency.  You can spend more time on story, roleplay, and immersion.  And speed of XP can be increased or decreased just by having a chat with the DM.
#13 thespaceinvader Jul 13, 2011 16:53:26	10 weeks/level seems excessive if you're playing once per week.  You should be levelling more or less once every three modules (two played-up modules if you're low in the tier, but more like 4 if you play newer adventures at APLs much lower than your character level).  10 weeks is a long, long time. It sounds like the DM is running the mods broken up into single encounters - that is useful for very new players to get used to the system (it took my new group 2 weeks to get through MINI 2-1 for just that reason) but for experienced players, it'll get boring quickly. You ought to be able to get most mods done in 4 hours, but you do have to keep a tight handle on time to be certain of it.
#14 ennervance Jul 13, 2011 21:56:19	Unfortunately, I think the slow pace is only you. As others have said, every 2-3 adventures should be a level for your character. If your DM says every 10 encounters is a level, he's more or less correct - each adventure has several encounters. If there are 15 (!) players at your table for it, why not split them up? Find a couple people also willing to DM (and may want to think about doing it yourself) and suddenly you'll have 3 tables of 5-6 people, which is much more manageable. And it probably won't take up any more space than y'all do now. And I thought LFR adventures were only legal if you played with 4-6 players in them, since anything more or less rather breaks the encounter design. And especially if you're only modifying it by adding an extra monster at the adventurer's level - you could well be looking at having 30 combatants in a single fight, half of them players. But yeah. Your experience doesn't match what mine has been with LFR. In fact, until I got to the 5th post, it almost sounded like you actually were participating in the Encounters sessions without knowing the difference.