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| #1ZardnaarApr 03, 2015 17:48:08 |
This is more of an abstract thread about how one can tell an epic story with out having to use epic levels as such. There has been a tendency in modern (WoTC) D&D to equate power directly with PC levels. For example at heroic tier you save a region, at pargagon tier you save the kingdom, and epic tier you save the multiverse. 3E also had this concept with the relaease of things like the Epic Level Handbook.
TSR era D&D did not have this. In effect epic tier was level 10+. For example in the temple of elemental evil you can face and defeat a demon lord around level 8 and Lolth had 66 hit points, a Balor had 8+8 HD (8d8+8 hit points).
This started to change in 2E with classes being nerfed from 1E and things likie Giants and Dragons being powered up and gods avatars being more powerful than the 1E gods themselves. 2E was where the level 1-20 mentality started from IMHO, 1E anything over level 14 was amazing/rare, BECMI could go all the way to level 36 but I suspect most players did not make it past the expert boxed set (level 14). 2E was where the level 20 cap became a thing in a core rule book, BECMI sold you expansions to go higher, 1E added higher levels in Unearthed Arcana for several classes.
Now how do you tell an epic story in D&D using lower levels? I will use Luke SkyWalker here as an example and the WoTC produced d20 Star Wars (2000) and Star Wars Saga Edition (2007 aka SWSE) as an example. I assume you have seen the Star Wars original trilogy. Now d20 SW had a rule that to take Jedi levels in the imperial era you had to multiclass (MC) into it due to the Jedi order being exterminated. D20 SW also stated Luke Skywalker out and so did SWSE.
Luke Skywalker RoTJ Scout 1/Jedi7/Ace Pilot 2 Jedi Knight1 (lvl 11) The original d20 game gave him 2 levels of scout, SWSE it was easier to MC as a Jedi.
Grand Master Luke Skywalker (30+ years after Star Wars) Scout 1, Jedi 7, Ace Pilot2, Jedi Knight 5, Jedi Master 5
The Grandmaster Skywalker also has 2 completed destinies that in 5E terms grant him advantage on a skill check (use the force in SWSE) and a redemption bonus of extra force points (action points in 3.5 Eberron/4E, inspiration multiple times in 5E). So at the beginning of a New Hope depending on what edition of d20 SW you prefer Luke was a level 1 or 2 Scout. So in 5E we would make a Ranger I suppose and I’ll go with level 2. He has some feats as well such as force sensitive and probably skill focus pilot. In 5E he would probably have the lucky feat.
The events of a new hope pan out and he gets trained on the Falcon by Obi Wan. Here he picks up his 1st Jedi level but he is still a newb but he learns to use a light sabre. They fly to Alderaan on a 5E skyship or perhaps a spelljamming ship. They end up on the death star and escape while rescuing the princess. By the time he gets back to Yavin I suppose you could make the argument he is now level 4 and he takes another level in Jedi. In 5E rules he is probably something like a level 2 Ranger/warlock2.
The death star turns up and he jumps in an X-Wing (Mosquito in Spelljammer) and flies up against the Death Star. The Tie Fighters are mostly mmoks in terms of stats and the rebel squadrons have better ships (X-wings) and better pilots with the best one (Wedge) being something like a Soldier 7/Ace Pilot 1. The only imperial pilot that is decent is Vader and Han rolls a 20 or perhaps uses a destiny point to hit him. Luke uses the force (spends a force point) and blows the Death Star up saving the galaxy from its superlaser (blows up an uber sized beholder space station with a massive disintegrate ray that can destroy planets). Roll the final credits and Luke has perhaps completed a destruction destiny and may level up again to level 4 or 5 depending on what level you think he is.
Saving the galaxy that is kind of epic and Luke is only 5 at best. In D&D that sort of thing is level 15+ expectation but one can do this in D&D as well as any super weapon like a plague or portal to the abyss can be solved by low level PCs. End credits and The Empire Strikes Back rolls around set 3 years after A New Hope.
In those years Luke has levelled up some more in his off screen adventures. He is probably around level 9 or 10 or so and has picked up some levels in Ace Pilot (Rogue Squadron), and some more Jedi levels. The BBEG have noticed him however as he flew up the DeathStar and the whole disturbance in the force thing.
Luke gets the itch and the force (metaplot) guides him to Dagobah. He get the as trained by Yoda t-shirt and flies off to confront Vader as he picked up a Jedi Knight level which in game you can only get by being a member of the Jedi Order. He gets delusions of grandeur and flies off to confront Vader with his trained by Yoda T-shirt.
Things go badly for him, Vader is level 19 (Jedi 7/Jedi Knight 5/Ace Pilot2/Sith apprentice2/ Sith Lord 3). Vader reduced him to 0 hit points and uses his talent to spare his life which under SWSE rules lops off Lukes hand. In 5E the GM rules the BBEG spares his life after reducing him to 0hp which is in the rules. Luke falls down the shaft, makes it back to the Falcon and perhaps picks up some xp for role playing which may or may not level him up, roll the end credits and the next movie.
Return of the Jedi is only set 6 months after Empire. At best Luke has likely picked up only a level in the normal Jedi class no more than 2 and is now level 11. He goes and rescues Han from Jabba.
Jabba the Hutt (Rebellion Era source book) Noble 3/Scoundral4/Crime Lord5 12 total levels (NPC stats in 5E or Rogue 12 I suppose with the criminal background) Fett ends up in the Sarlacc. Jabba is not that tough physically and gets strangled by a slave girl although to be fair Leia is level 10 (Soldier 2/Noble 10 or 5E fighter 2/Rogue8 noble background). This is why Jabba has Fett on retainer.
Fett (Scout 3/Soldier5/BountyHunter5/Elite Trooper 2 (level 15 5E Ranger: hunter 4, Fighter: Champion 11 or NPC stats) Fett gets double teams by a level 8 Scoundrel (Rogue, its Lando) and Han who would have been level 11 or 12 give or take. He flunks a skill check or one of the heroes blows a destiny point or uses inspiration and Fett is Sarlacc fodder until the Dark Empire comics have him survive.
The movie rolls on and Luke confronts his father and the Emperor on the Death Star. At the start of the movie he is level 11 and now he is at best level 12 IMHO. The Emperor is level 20 with rolled stats but as we all know Vader turns on him, Luke probably gets enough xp to hit level 13 or so and he completes his destiny redeeming his father. In the comics he completes an education destiny for re-establishing the Jedi order.
So in short when one thinks about it and looks at the RPG materials I think the Star Wars trilogy is a prime example of how to tell an awesome story that is epic and wraps up around level 12 or 13 although if you read the books the PCs keep going. The Death Star gets blown up by level 5, and the big bad gets pwned at level 12 +/1 1 level. And that is my D&D take on the original Star Wars trilogy. I hope they never make prequels to these movies (la la la la la la fingers in ears m’kay). |
| #2BRJNApr 03, 2015 21:53:15 | Rumor has it that the prequel material includes an example of a Paladin turning into a Blackguard. (Vader) There is also supposed to be perhaps the ultimate "I rolled a 20" Deception check (Palpatine) opposed by an "I rolled a 1" Investigation-or-Insight check (Jedi Councll, even after Aid Another).
Han probably has 1 level of Untrained Force-User, if you don't just substitute Lucky. He also should have enough levels of Ace Pilot that he can Take 10 for all the mundane tasks of flying a starship.
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| #3Tempest_StormwindApr 03, 2015 22:08:42 | The entire sand barge fight was statted up in Saga edition preview material. Since WotC lost the license those articles are gone, but people have mirrored them. (I find that when making a game rule point, it's always best to stick within a single game, so there's no mixed messages and fewer spaces for error.)
A related link would be Calibrating your Expectations, which I maintain is the most important article ever written for 3e/3.5. I mean to do something similar for 5e, but for now, it's just a matter of realizing how badass low-level characters truly are, and how low level certain well-known badasses could easily be. The same instinct that says "Luke was amazing, he must be level 20" also leads one to overestimate D&D levels for the concepts in their heads. |
| #4ZardnaarApr 03, 2015 22:33:18 |
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| #5RastapopoulosApr 03, 2015 23:12:15 |
2E actually had the same standards you mentioned as "epic levels", that being 10+ And not 20+ as in WotC era.
Not that this exact term was used, but when you look at the changes that occur around level 10 in 2E you clearly notice this is a turning point. XP progression suddenly is set to a fixed amount per level, you stop gaining HD for a much lower and fixed HP per level, leveling becomes considerably slower, among a few other things. Yes, the core books show you how to go till level 20, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to go from 1 to 20 in the course of a few adventures, nor that there are more high-level NPCs around. It's just there compiled in the same book so you have that info, as if the "epic levels" were already included in the basic rules book.
Levels 10+ in 2E are really a big deal. When you get around 10 it's the point where your "mundane heroics" (LOTR/Conan style) are coming to a close, and you're supposedly entering into the realm of Beowulf or other mythical legends. Many of the great heroes in AD&D's novels were levels 4-7 when you looked at their ingame sheets. Including the heroes of the lance. And that's because being something like level 5 was already remarkable. It meant you were vastly more skilled than the average Level 0/Level 1 population of the world.
When you look at the very things some characters can do at these levels, like fighting off several enemies alone or casting spells that let you fly or create a storm to summon lightning from the sky... those are really impressive things and they're meant for characters around level 5-9.
And that is something that rather displeased me when WotC changed the standards...
Since 3E they decided that, well, let's change what level ranges represent. A level 5 character is no longer that remarkable but is only begining to earn some respectability. A level 10 character is no longer a legendary hero. Only after level 20 can he be truly considered that. And let's make leveling throughout those 20 levels a lot faster now since each level doesn't mean that much anymore.
And, well, that would be OK, really, if they had rearranged the game to fit into this more granular character progression. What was 10 levels before is now 20, but the level of power and epicness of those 10 levels should be now spread along those 20 levels.
Except... no, they didn't. All spells that let you do awesome, epic, legendary things were kept at the same levels. A level 5 fighter could still take out about the same amount of regular warriors as before, and so on. So what happened was that characters would reach those stages of "epicness" so much faster and easier whithout supposedly being that much impressive. Meaning that those things such as taking down entire bands by yourself, shaping stonewalls with your will, flying or changing the weather to summon lightning from the sky... became common place.
After all, what's a level 5 wizard? Not a seasoned mage who's seen countless adventures and reached remarkable levels of power anymore... he's just "some regular wizard" now. Except he can still do the same things as the "awesome" level 5 wizard of before, so doing those things has now become banal, and ceased to be impressive in the game world.
If WotC meant to change the scaling of power in the game, they should have rebalanced the entire game accordingly. That's something that has always bugged me with WotC's versions of the game. |
| #6LuisCarlos17fApr 04, 2015 8:20:17 | Only I wanted to say I have thought about a concept of class for D&D, a jedi-like character, and the name would be "cofrater" (=brother or member of a brotherhood). It would be like a monk with a sword and psionic powers. |
| #7FFSAAApr 04, 2015 8:33:57 | In his entire career (on screen) Luke got into as many fights as a D&D character is expected to get into in 1 or at most 2 days.
The guy out-pilots ace pilots his first day in an X-Wing. He shoots better than computers shoot.
As an apprentice he goes toe to toe with masters who have had decades of practice and does respectably well managing to at least hold them off for minutes while in D&D a level 4 wouldn't last more than 12 seconds.
The guy parries blaster shots. Seriously, whatever level he is, he could walk through an army of regular people armed with swords and destroy them without taking a scratch. This would require particular builds, equipment and high level to pull off in 5E.
5E has not made any attempt to model Star Wars nor should it. Luke is a walking deus ex machina. While fun to watch, it would be increadibly boring to play the guy that can never lose and is better than everyone at everything the first time he tries. |
| #8BRJNApr 04, 2015 10:50:03 |
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| #9cassi_brazucaApr 04, 2015 11:26:36 |
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| #10ZardnaarApr 04, 2015 11:49:37 |
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| #11FFSAAApr 04, 2015 16:15:12 |
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| #12ZardnaarApr 04, 2015 17:27:11 |
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| #13Tempest_StormwindApr 04, 2015 18:32:14 | Well, part of that is that the SWSE version of the stormtrooper is alarmingly good, and not for the reason people think.
For those not in the know, they all had Coordinated Attack as a feat, which basically meant that they don't need to roll if they used Aid Another (that is, the Help action). This meant that as you went up in levels, the DM stopped viewing stormtroopers as standalone foes, and started viewing them as a buff effect that can be "dispelled" by shooting the trooper providing it.
For instance, four stormtroopers, one heavy stormtrooper (slightly better stats, but a much better weapon), and an Imperial officer (who had an ability (available to PCs too) that let him use his action to make Aid Another bonuses much higher) worked as a really effective death squad. Against people without lightsabers, you'd ignore the actions for the normal troopers and the officer (since they'd all use their Aid Another abilities, none of which required a roll, but you might describe it as barking orders for the troopers to lay down suppressive fire) and you'd just attack with the heavy, who'd enjoy a whopping +20 on his attack roll (which is more than enough to hit high-level PCs or lay down a hard-to-dodge autofire effect). Against targets with lightsabers (who are known in-universe to parry blaster shots), you'd have each trooper attack individually (a whopping 3d8 for a standard blaster rifle), with the heavy attacking last - blaster shots did not-insignificant damage, so there's incentive to Deflect each one, but each separate shot imposed a cumulative penalty on subsequent Deflects, so the barrage of blaster fire would have a better chance than you'd expect of punching through the Jedi's defenses.
Of course, a really high level character, or a party expecting this, there's ways around it, but it's a great way to keep using low-level signature threats in a higher-level game without actually increasing the number of rolls you'd need to make (a death squad against a non-Jedi is making the same number of rolls a standard single trooper would make). Since Saga was mostly following the 3.5 design lead, it didn't have a bounded accuracy curve, which would have been the other way to accomplish this, so it went with the next best thing.
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| #14ZardnaarApr 04, 2015 19:38:07 |
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| #15BRJNApr 06, 2015 17:12:21 | In one of the more recent novels, Leia's daughter actually has to Force-deflect a blaster bolt aimed straight at her, and reminds herself, "These are NOT your mother's Stormtroopers." Because the second-generation 'troopers shoot straight.
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| #16ZardnaarApr 06, 2015 22:07:10 |
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| #17BRJNApr 07, 2015 16:01:29 |
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| #18IstborApr 08, 2015 15:17:18 |
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| #19ZardnaarApr 08, 2015 19:33:59 |
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| #20Tony_VargasApr 08, 2015 19:51:28 |
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| #21ZardnaarApr 08, 2015 20:03:57 |
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| (Reply to #20)arnwolf666 |
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