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Electrohydra



Posts : 20
Join date : 2017-03-11

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PostSubject: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 2:31 am

I feel like I would not live up to my reputation if I didn't post this here. Have you considered a low-ish level cap. I would recommend 10 or 12, personally. It has multiple advantages...

-It's high enough that PCs can feel powerful, without being so strong that they feel like gods. Wizards can do some serious damage, but can't take out a whole small city by themselves. Fighters can stand up to some strong monsters, but not elder dragons.
-Most of the problematic spells are not included. Things like Etherealness, AoE save-or-die spells, summoning demon lords... Things which really cause more trouble then they help. Especially in events, some of these spells really cheapen the plot. (Etherealness is the first that comes to mind here)
-Combat is more sane. Most characters have 2-4 attacks per round, not 10. There are way fewer "I win" buttons.
-There is no need for the ever-common "half level" rule, where your character is only half it's printed power level to keep things sane. Anything your PC can do, they can actually do. Monsters can have their PnP stats without PCs being able to solo a Great Wyrm. Players have a reasonable understanding of how strong their PCs are/What they can do.
- The difference between an average character and an extremely powerbuilt one is smaller, giving more chances to the little guy and making having friends around more important then just being the highest level.
- Since the range or power for PCs is smaller, you can have more available dungeons at each level. For example, while in a 1-30 server, if you have 30 dungeons, you'd have one for every level. On a 1-10 server, you would have 3 dungeons to choose from at each level if the server has the same number of dungeons.

It also means you can have a slower leveling pace, since characters don't need that many levels to start being relevant. If people are worried about lack of progression, you can also implement an E10-like (Or other number) system where PCs continue progressing past level 10, but not with levels, and at a much slower pace.
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Shadowcraft

Shadowcraft

Posts : 57
Join date : 2017-03-05

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 7:05 am

theres been talk about a possible cap at lev 20, not sure whats going to happen, still what do you folks think?

personally I would not mind

lev 20 max, no build limits (i.e the 3 before 20 rule)
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Gorebash

Gorebash

Posts : 67
Join date : 2017-03-06
Age : 37
Location : Pomfret

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 8:41 am

Hmm, a level 10 cap could be interesting, as well as give the builders a bit more time to build up the higher level areas, and give players more time to explore and build up RP. Would also make it easier to expand to level 20 at a later date.
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Shadowcraft

Shadowcraft

Posts : 57
Join date : 2017-03-05

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 9:16 am

could could be kinda cool thinking about it actually.....

slowly increase the level cap as new areas/ server expantions are compleate.....

mmm
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Electrohydra



Posts : 20
Join date : 2017-03-11

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 9:50 pm

To elaborate a bit on what I'm suggesting... (Everything in this post considers the base game, since I don't know what custom content the server will be using)

The level cap I think would be best is 12. This is a neat spot, granting both an attribute point and a feat, while rewarding people who stick to high BAB classes with a 3rd attack per round.

This means that...

Full casters reach level 6 spells. Powerful, but not world-altering (At least not without being clever.) A few spells may need to be adjusted to fit.
Bards get 4th level spells.
Paladins and Rangers get 3rd level spells.
Warlocks gain a single Greater invocation. Powerful, but they only get one so the one they do choose will greatly change their playstyle.

Fighters get Greater Weapon Specilization if they stay pure.
Barbarians get Greater Rage is they reach level 11.
Monks get Greater Flurry, but not Diamond Soul.
Rangers get all their non-epic combat style feats.
Rogues gain a single special ability.
Druids get Dire Animal and Plant shapes as long as they stay pure, but not Elemental.

It's of course possible to shift around the levels at which classes gain their abilities. For example, if we wanted monks to get Diamond Soul, it could be shifted to level 12. If we wanted rogues to gt more special abilities, they could get them at levels 9 and 12 instead, for example. The above is just a rough look at what different classes could reach. If a class is too strong or too weak, it's easy to dung around which abilities they can get to balance them out. The exact details are less important then the general idea, which is to have PCs be heroic without having 12 Elminister-level characters running around Waterdeep.

I've seen similar systems work out very well in the past. Intrigues of Addercliff started with a level cap of 12, and it was very enjoyable. It made characters much more grounded, and made them require to be smart instead of relying on brute force to solve all their problems. It also meant that not every threat needed to be the end-of-the-world kind to challenge PCs, and let's face it, when there is a new end-of-the-world scenario every week, it becomes hard to take such things seriously.

Yes this might be a bigger change then people where expecting, but this is the great thing about making a new server. You can do major, drastic changes which you could never do once the server is up and running.
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Mairn

Mairn

Posts : 75
Join date : 2017-02-15
Age : 33
Location : Canada

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 10:27 pm

Personally, level 12 just makes a complete lack of build diversity, because of the exact reasons you just put in your above post. No room for multiclassing, no room for prestige classes, no room for interesting and effective builds.

Making the 2-12 grind take as long as the 2-20 grind is sort of awful and boring as well.
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Electrohydra



Posts : 20
Join date : 2017-03-11

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySat Mar 11, 2017 11:02 pm

Build diversity will always be relative. Level cap 12 with custom content will be more diverse then level cap 30 vanilla. It will be less diverse then level 30 maybe... in a way. Diversity is nice, but it also often ends up pretty similar. There might be ten ways to build an archer, but nine out of ten of those do the same thing, maybe with different colors on their damage numbers.

From what I've read the team wants to start with base classes only, anyhow. Build diversity for then won't really be affected by the level cap that much in that circumstances.

When PRCs get added however, there are ways to make a low-mid level cap more diverse then you might think.

The first possibility is to add all the PRCs, but shrunk down in fewer levels. If no PRC takes more then 5 levels, then you can fit 3-4 classes into 12 levels without too much trouble, if you so desire.

The second, more complicated option is to have progression past level 12, but not with levels but feats. This is a popular system in PnP called E12 (Or E6, E8, E10.... whatever the level cap is). How it works is as follows...

You continue gaining experience points past level 12. However, whenever you would gain a level, instead you gain a bonus feat and no level.

Most of the abilities usually seen on PRCs could be made into feats instead (Possibly with pre-reqs for the more powerful ones), and level 12 PCs could get these feats to make their build unique, effectively having as much diversity as a level 30 server. However, things like BAB, hit dice, Spell Levels and such remain low, keeping character power level sane without reducing their uniqueness.
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tjhyland

tjhyland

Posts : 41
Join date : 2017-03-07
Age : 65
Location : Chicagoland, IL

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySun Mar 12, 2017 7:33 pm

Level 12 cap is an excellent idea for all the reason good and bad mentioned above.
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Admin

Admin

Posts : 161
Join date : 2016-11-04

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyMon Mar 13, 2017 1:23 pm

The current official unofficial cap is level 20. (Meaning we originally discussed a level 20 cap before the influx of team and community members so we are going to rediscuss it). Starting lower and increasing as the server grows and we release expansions. There are alot of good points in here and it will definitely be posted with the level cap development discussion once it opens. We want to let the classes/build rules/races development topics close first however.

Keep posting pros and cons and we will definitely take everyone's thoughts and opinions into account when we discuss the official cap. Community is important here, and so is every suggestion. Don't be afraid to be radical as it's a core building block in innovation.
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tjhyland

tjhyland

Posts : 41
Join date : 2017-03-07
Age : 65
Location : Chicagoland, IL

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyMon Mar 13, 2017 3:21 pm

Radical!!!!! You been fermenting your carrot juice?
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djcamodude



Posts : 2
Join date : 2017-05-07
Age : 26

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptySun May 07, 2017 10:13 pm

I can't help but agree with a lower level cap to have small road blocks for content to be finished and released.
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Eypheha



Posts : 7
Join date : 2017-03-30

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyMon May 15, 2017 3:34 pm

Well, let's see. Goals...goals are important to player participation. Especially players who are more solitary and tend to only socialize on an infrequent basis. Not to say that this should be the norm where people only log to grind and then leave. These players are more often than not very transient anyway.

What I am saying is that leveling gives a player goals, the more the merrier. We don't necessarily need to expand the power band with the number of levels. The number of levels attainable could be increased while the feats, spells, bonuses etc given is meted out sparingly over those levels.

I know this would be painstakingly difficult to reshape. But rather than reduce the 'goals' available, please consider another path if you want to cap player power at some lower level.

I do have to ask a question about capping levels at 10, or 12...or 20 or whatever. Why? Is it to make the DM's job easier to design challenging material? Or is to make the relative difference between starting players and capped players smaller. Of course, that brings up more questions. This to me is placing the cart before the horse. What are the goals you think are important? Is it RP for the sake of RP and advancing only on a purely political and social scale independent of the characters' actual heroic abilities?

So, it seems the question to be asked is what do you want the characters to be capable of doing. If the only goal is to be able to socialize regardless of your level and heroic abilities, then get rid of levels altogether. Really, what's the point if you just want to hang around and talk and gain status because you got the 'gift of gab'?? If, on the other hand, you also want to be able to do heroic deeds that further the status of the character, then make that available.

Seems we're asking if a player's heroic abilities are important. Seems that they're not. At least not in the overall scheme of things.
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Gorebash

Gorebash

Posts : 67
Join date : 2017-03-06
Age : 37
Location : Pomfret

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyTue May 16, 2017 4:41 am

I think the initial idea for the lowered level cap, was to give the build team some breathing space. In order to get from starting level to level 20, there likely needs to monsters, quests, and various other things to allow that, which means a lot of maps to cover for various exp levels.

Having a lowered level cap, would reduce the full amount of monster maps needed at the start, as well as giving a bit more control to dm's for event. The Level cap could be raised at later opportunities as more maps are added and the City of Splendors and underneath is expanded and becomes explorable, and allow it so characters in the race for max level don't suddenly find the monsters/quests for Level Blah aren't in the server yet.

If given an early warning of the lowered level cap at early stages, the build team may not be under so much pressure to add so many maps that things aren't covered. I think the initial Idea the dM's had was a level 20 cap, but considering how many maps have to be made, a lowered starting level cap may reduce the stress on the build teams.
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Eypheha



Posts : 7
Join date : 2017-03-30

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyThu May 18, 2017 11:13 am

If this, as you have stated, is the idea, I think the idea is both workable and could allow for a higher initial quality. Some great projects fail, but that's always a chance and this one is worth taking, I think. I would rather have a lower starting cap and the understood agreement that we can have that cap raised as the server progresses than to have a higher cap and then undergo the agonizing process of being de-leveled for various mechanical reasons.

While I have the soapbox, I'd like to ask a question. First, a supposition: Most sites with multiple players design areas so that the area is challenging for a party of two to several characters. I don't expect we will ever have a huge population. One or two people on the site at times will be a common occurrence. Could we have some areas that are not so difficult that a single player could gain EXP without dying? That is, could some of the areas be at least partially 'solo-able'?

I know the server aims to be social and strives to promote that aspect, and asking that we have something that allows for anti-social behavior to flourish is maybe not in our best interest, but I do think it would be to our advantage to have areas like that. Enough said...just a thought.
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Admin

Admin

Posts : 161
Join date : 2016-11-04

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PostSubject: Re: Level cap   Level cap EmptyThu May 18, 2017 4:38 pm

Eypheha wrote:
I know the server aims to be social and strives to promote that aspect, and asking that we have something that allows for anti-social behavior to flourish is maybe not in our best interest, but I do think it would be to our advantage to have areas like that. Enough said...just a thought.

+1
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