Post by Finarvyn on May 31, 2010 8:14:45 GMT -6
I know that I've been playing OD&D for longer than some of you have been alive, but I'll confess that 95% of my play has been at levels of 8th level or less. I've got couple of issues here dealing with advancing characters above the levels given in the charts and I'm hoping that some of you have already thought this through.
1. I'm looking at page 19 of Men & Magic. Since I've rarely done high level adventures, I'd like to be certain that I understand the charts correctly. Is there an upper limit on hit dice? (For example, a 20th level fighter would appear to have 20+2 hit dice.) Is there an upper limit on spells known per level? (For example, the 20th level cleric would appear to know 8 spells of each level 1-5.)
2. Does anyone actually cap levels? I wonder since the MEN ATTACKING matrix (also page 19) limits characters to "16 & +", which would seem to indicate that fighters are limited in their fighting prowess and eventually the other classes would catch up. Clerics move up one column every 4 levels instead of the fighter's 3 and M-U move up one column every 5 levels, so I think for the cleric that column would read "21 & +" and for the Magic-user it would read "26 & +", which seems to say that all characters would have the same bonus (+12) by 26th level.
3. I don't see anything that actually states how many XP are needed to advance beyond the charts on page 16. The magic user looks pretty obvious, with the final 3 levels listed being 100,000 above the previous level, but fighter and cleric are more obscure. I might guess 120,000 for the fighter and 50,000 (or 100,000) for the cleric, but that seems to make it harder for fighters to advance than the other classes. This would be a really bad deal, especially if I interpret #2 above correctly.
1. I'm looking at page 19 of Men & Magic. Since I've rarely done high level adventures, I'd like to be certain that I understand the charts correctly. Is there an upper limit on hit dice? (For example, a 20th level fighter would appear to have 20+2 hit dice.) Is there an upper limit on spells known per level? (For example, the 20th level cleric would appear to know 8 spells of each level 1-5.)
2. Does anyone actually cap levels? I wonder since the MEN ATTACKING matrix (also page 19) limits characters to "16 & +", which would seem to indicate that fighters are limited in their fighting prowess and eventually the other classes would catch up. Clerics move up one column every 4 levels instead of the fighter's 3 and M-U move up one column every 5 levels, so I think for the cleric that column would read "21 & +" and for the Magic-user it would read "26 & +", which seems to say that all characters would have the same bonus (+12) by 26th level.
3. I don't see anything that actually states how many XP are needed to advance beyond the charts on page 16. The magic user looks pretty obvious, with the final 3 levels listed being 100,000 above the previous level, but fighter and cleric are more obscure. I might guess 120,000 for the fighter and 50,000 (or 100,000) for the cleric, but that seems to make it harder for fighters to advance than the other classes. This would be a really bad deal, especially if I interpret #2 above correctly.
