“Illusion of Power Gamer” rules edit

[Finarvyn]

I had this wacky idea I wanted to bounce off of the group.

I was thinking about an OD&D rules system for the “power gamer”, only one which was more illusionary than real. Think about this: suppose I take the OD&D rules and insert some levels IN BETWEEN the existing levels, and then re-number them. A 10th level character in OD&D could thus become 20th in the rules edit. This would allow for characters to advance “faster” in level numbers but not change the overall power structure, which is why I term it Illusionary.

On the surface it seems like a lot of work, but maybe this would make players feel like they are making progress faster. This seems particularly important to younger gamers who are used to “leveling up” constantly in video games. I can’t decide if I want to insert 1 or 2 level s in between (essentially moving the chart up to IL-20 or IL-30 or so).

What I was thinking is something like this:
* Insert 1-2 levels in between the “true level” (TL) and the “illusionary level” (IL).

* Set up either half hit-dice, or set up a system where characters gain a HD every other level. (This would be kind of like the Feats model in 3E, where some advantages occur on only certain levels.)

* Adjust the Saving Throw charts

* Adjust the to-hit charts

* Spell lists could be left the same or renumbered, but I’d need to adjust the spells per day chart. As with HD, it’s possible that spellcasters might only gain new spells at certain levels.

* I could do something similar for monsters, so that a 8 HD creature (for example) would now be IL-16.

* I might want to also adjust the stat bonuses, allowing characters to advance a lot higher before the gain another bonus.

* I’ve thought about shifting from d20 to d100, just to allow for partial bonuses. (e.g. each d20 +1 would become a d100 +5%, so I could effectively use +0.5 numbers as +3% or some such.)

What I’d like to know is:
* Is this idea a good one or a stupid one?

* Are there any other things that need to be adjusted other than the list above.

* Can you foresee any problems that are likely to occur by trying this (other than the fact that it won’t be compatible with OD&D or the clones without some conversion)?

[coffee]

Seems to me like a lot of work for very little effort; you could just as well play 3e which already does this.

I guess I'm not sure WHY you'd want to do this; slow progression is part and parcel of OD&D.

But the only real drawback I can see is that you'd give your players a false view of D&D progression.


This one I don't even understand...

* I might want to also adjust the stat bonuses, allowing characters to advance a lot higher before the gain another bonus.

[kesher]

I get where you're coming from, Fin, especially in terms of younger players, but my gut instinct would simply be to allow faster level progression, or maybe just make sure they find lots of different, quirky low-powerish magic items.

Either that, or simply cap levels much earlier while keeping normal progression, so it doesn't take as long to get to the ultimate campaign level.

...slow progression is part and parcel of OD&D.

Coffee, I'm not sure I really agree with that. More and more I think advancement needs to be tailored to fit the needs of a given play group, as we did with ours.

In fact, Fin, that'd be another approach to take for progression: In our group, since we only meet once/month, XPs are given to the player, not the character, so when someone's character dies, they can transfer all the experience they've gained onto a new character, even if it results in a new character of a higher level than their old one!

Hopefully I didn't drift this off-topic...

[Finarvyn]

May 3, 2010 10:12:31 GMT -6 coffee said:

This one I don't even understand...

* I might want to also adjust the stat bonuses, allowing characters to advance a lot higher before the gain another bonus.

I would still have them roll 3d6 (or maybe roll 4, keep 3) to generate stats from 3-18, but allow them to improve.

I was thinking of something more like T&T where characters can continue to let their stats go higher, and even more than 18's. My thought was that if I changed the bonus values then an 18 on the new scale might be more like a 14 on the old scale.

Old scale from Moldvay:
9-12 = +0
13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18 = +3

Possible Power game scale:
9-14 = +0
15-20 = +1
21-24 = +2
25-26 = +3

Okay, so it's not D&D anymore but it would allow players to have the illusion of having awesome stats (and levels) without unbalancing the basic system.....

[Finarvyn]

May 3, 2010 10:33:25 GMT -6 kesher said:

I get where you're coming from, Fin, especially in terms of younger players, but my gut instinct would simply be to allow faster level progression, or maybe just make sure they find lots of different, quirky low-powerish magic items.

But faster level progression actually gets them more power faster. My thought was to create more of an illusion of faster power.

[kesher]

May 3, 2010 12:11:41 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

May 3, 2010 10:33:25 GMT -6 kesher said:

I get where you're coming from, Fin, especially in terms of younger players, but my gut instinct would simply be to allow faster level progression, or maybe just make sure they find lots of different, quirky low-powerish magic items.

But faster level progression actually gets them more power faster. My thought was to create more of an illusion of faster power.

Okay, I think I'm getting it now. So, you'd like to reframe the system, making power-gain basically the same overall, but incremented more often. I'd love to see what that looks like. There's a certain kind of player for whom that'd probably be really appealing.

Okay, so it's not D&D anymore but it would allow players to have the illusion of having awesome stats (and levels) without unbalancing the basic system.....

I'd still call that D&D, just Old School homebrew D&D...

[coffee]

Remember the thread on having spellcasters gain spells every level, i.e. 3rd level can cast 3rd level spells? Someone (don't remember who) went through and revised the spell tables so that each level had spells of that level.

So, you could keep the spell progression as it is, but use those spell tables instead.

That would help.

Not sure what to do about hit points, though.

[geoffrey]

I've toyed with re-writing D&D so as to have character levels go up to 100, with the PCs going up one level at the end of each session. A 100th-level character would be roughly equivalent to a 20th-level character in OD&D.

[Finarvyn]

May 3, 2010 15:47:45 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

I've toyed with re-writing D&D so as to have character levels go up to 100, with the PCs going up one level at the end of each session. A 100th-level character would be roughly equivalent to a 20th-level character in OD&D.

Yes! This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about, except that you have a 5:1 level ratio and I was planning 2:1 or 3:1.

I could live with a 5:1 scale. How far along is this project, or is it just in the theoretical stage?

[Finarvyn]

May 3, 2010 15:05:33 GMT -6 coffee said:

Remember the thread on having spellcasters gain spells every level, i.e. 3rd level can cast 3rd level spells? Someone (don't remember who) went through and revised the spell tables so that each level had spells of that level.

Actually, I remember that thread and was thinking of taking it even farther, but I didn't want to clog up my original post with too many wacky ideas at once.

I figured once I got my levels worked out right then I would have to go back to re-number the spells again, and I thought I could start with the 20-level model and go from there....

[kesher]

I would truly love to see D&D with a level cap of 100...

Yeah, geoffrey, when you say "toy", what ideas were you playing with?

[vladtolenkov]

I just recently got a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia and it goes all the way to 36th level. I'm not sure if it would help, but you could take a look at that for ideas.

That might not be what you're looking for though as it may not fit the "illusion" you're trying to create here.

BTW I remember the old Throne of Bloodstone AD&D adventure had lvl 100 characters like Perseus etc.

[Finarvyn]

May 4, 2010 11:54:53 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

That might not be what you're looking for though as it may not fit the "illusion" you're trying to create here.

No. I have the RC and it actually advances the levels to 36, rather than giving the illusion of high levels.

For example, suppose I insert levels 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 in between 1, 2, 3, and 4. (This gives us 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, and so on.) Renumber the levels so we don't have strange 1/2 names and we get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on. So, "true level" 3 would be renamed "illusionary level" 5. (Or something like that, depending upon how you number the levels.) This means I could advance characters to higher levels faster, but keep their relative power lower.

In the same way, Geoffrey suggested that he could re-do the classes so that "true level" 20 could become "illusionary level" 100. A 100th level character would actually only be as powerful as a BTB 20th level character.

Make sense?

[geoffrey]

I'm afraid I haven't written a thing on my ideas on this matter. They are very similar to Fin's, though. To hit rolls and saving throws would be made with percentile dice (thus going up 1% increments rather than 5% increments). In as many cases as possible, the benefits of going up one standard D&D level would be evenly spread amongst 5 levels in the 100-level scheme.

[Finarvyn]

Another thought occured to me ... the use of +1/2 in some of the charts.

For example, between 3 HD and 4 HD could be a half-level with 3 1/2 HD. A person would roll 3 HD normally and one "divide by two" die to get the total.

Or, if a shield is +1 1/2 and armor is +1/2 it would sum up to +2. If a stray +1/2 was floating around, it would be ignored.

I'm thinking also that I might scrap the spell chart and change it into "spell points" so I could assign spells at the half levels. (There's not much wiggle room for magic users, for example, between spells cast at 3rd level and spells cast at 4th, but with spell points I could pick a number in between.)

Just me musing out loud.....

[waysoftheearth]

I haven't thought about this over-much, but it occurred to me that another way to achieve a "finer" granularity of advancement might be to toss out your d20 and start using a d30. This might also be just the excuse you need to get one of these "new fangled polyhedral die"

I have a feeling that this might just "play" better at the table, because rolling d100 is actually a bit fiddly compared to rolling a d20 (or, I am assuming, a d30).

Given this finer granularity of possible rolls, you might;

• Allow ability modifiers up to +3, as per D&D?
  
• Make the base AC10, as per AD&D?
  
• Give Fighting-Men +1 to hit per level
  
• Give Monsters +1 to hit per HD
  

Then, any roll of d30 +level(or HD) +target AC hits if the result is 30 or more. Thus a level 1 fighter with 18 strength would add +4, so would need to roll a 16+ on a d30 to hit AC10 (i.e., a 15 in 30 chance, or 50%).

Similarly, saving throws could advance by +1 per level, from some class/race dependent initial value, perhaps modified by wisdom (again up to +3).

The finer granularity would also enable the ref to introduce magical items with "bigger pluses" without really being any more powerful, since a +6 "to hit" weapon in a d30 system, is exactly equivalent to a +4 "to hit" in a d20 system. But a "+6 sword" still sounds epic compared to a +20% sword... at least to me (perhaps because I can't help but interpret that +6 in d20 terms).

I guess I'm assuming here that having "bigger" ability modifiers and having "bigger and shinier" magical stuff is fundamental to the "power gaming" illusion.

A big challenge would still be re-distributing the existing spells list across a new level spread, but it is certainly doable. For what it's worth, I would be inclined to aim for a result where a spell level is equal to the character level at which it could be cast.

Just a few thoughts...

[geoffrey]

Yep, I've thought about the ol' 30-sider as well. ;D

[Finarvyn]

Still pondering the “Illusion of Power Gaming” problem. I decided to insert half levels and then re-number them. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far…

Level = new numbering system
Old = OD&D numbering system, with half-levels included
XP = experience points (I may switch to 1000’s of XP later on since numbers are getting huge)
HD = d6 hit dice, from the Men & Magic charts plus extrapolation
HP = average number of hit points. Using these would get rid of the “half hit die” problem.
BAB = Basic Attack Bonus; taking the chart on page 19 of M&M and making it a bonus
FC = Fighting Capability; I like Snorri’s idea of using this for damage instead of multiple attacks
Super = FC against supernatural creatures (the extra chart from Chainmail)
SP = Spell Points (the sum of spell levels cast) since I don’t have half-spells.
SL = Maximum spell level cast.









Spell casting would appear to be another issue to deal with, since I run into a half-level problem with spells. I can see a couple of options here.

Option the first: Re-do the spell charts so that there are more levels. In other words, the OD&D first level spell list might be redone to represent levels 1-4, second level spells reclassified 5-8, and so on. This would allow for gradual addition of spells as characters advance.

Option the second: go with spell points as per my charts. This gets rid of the half-spell issue but is clearly farther in design from the OD&D game system.

Thoughts or suggestions?

[Arminath]

Instead of giving them spell points at every level, keep the rate of gain of their 'spells per day' on the 'real levels' and at the 'half levels' grant them a spell for their books.

If you don't make your Clerics keep a spell tome, then set their 'turn undead' power to increase at the 'half levels' and their spells per day to their 'real levels'.

This actually spreads out their abilities more and makes each level seem to 'mean' something.

[Arminath]

Has any more work or progress been made on this?

[dwayanu]

If you go to d%, then you can use smaller increments than 5%.

For instance, 30% goes from just 6x 5% to 10x 3% or 15x 2%.

[Deleted]

A bit crude, alternative way: half of levels are "defence levels", while the other half are "ability levels".

Every "defence level" improves HD and saves like in the original game.

Every "ability level" improves spells, turning undead, the number of attacks of the Fighting Man and maybe the BAB.

While "defence level" increases at the same rate as the normal level in the original game (i. e. Fighting Man would gain 2nd HD at 2000 XP), "ability level" increases would happen when a character has the half of the originally required XP (Fighting Man would gain additional attack on 1000 XP).

[Finarvyn]

Jun 7, 2010 14:04:48 GMT -6 Arminath said:

Has any more work or progress been made on this?

Glad you asked.

1. I was letting it simmer to see what comments came in from you guys.

2. I'm still looking at those upper levels, although I confess that the lower levels are the most interesting to me. I may put in a level cap below 39, but if I don't I still need to figure out what to do with some of the "Levels Above Those Listed" issues.

3. I'm debating if I want to make a dice switch or not. I'm not a big fan of d30 or d100, but one or both might do things that the d20 simply can't handle.

[Arminath]

I looked over the material only in the 3LBB and based on that and your above charts I mocked up a chart for Clerics. I think that you could make your cut off at 19th level (just as if it were a 10 level game still) simply due to the fact that in the 3LBB there is no 'higher level' abilities beyond spells. If you were using Greyhawk, there still would be no real reason to play a Fighting-man beyond the low levels beside the fact that there needs to be meatshields to protect the spellcasters.



One thing I noticed was that in the few examples I saw (and correct me if I'm wrong) going from a Hit Dice with a bonus (like 4+1) to the next Hit Dice means going to a flat die, not a higher die with a bonus (going from 4+1 to 5 Hit Dice, not 4+1 Hit Dice to 5+1 Hit Dice). The high end of the charts have going from a +3 Hit Dice bonus to a higher Hit Dice with a +1 bonus. It doesn't 'feel' right when I look at it (maybe it's just me).

Also, now that I'm looking at it, keeping the Turn Undead acquisition at the 'real' levels and bumping the Spell Acquisition to 'fake' levels would really give every level a purpose (for Clerics at least). Even levels would be for spells while odd levels would affect HD and combat ability/saving throws.

[Finarvyn]

Jun 8, 2010 8:46:03 GMT -6 Arminath said:

One thing I noticed was that in the few examples I saw (and correct me if I'm wrong) going from a Hit Dice with a bonus (like 4+1) to the next Hit Dice means going to a flat die, not a higher die with a bonus (going from 4+1 to 5 Hit Dice, not 4+1 Hit Dice to 5+1 Hit Dice). The high end of the charts have going from a +3 Hit Dice bonus to a higher Hit Dice with a +1 bonus. It doesn't 'feel' right when I look at it (maybe it's just me).

I agree that some of the dice have that wrong feel to them. I tried to follow the LBB as closely as possible so I think my chart reflects the "correct" way to do it, but I would make some tweaks if I was creating the charts from scratch. For example, for the cleric the HD goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 4+1, 5, 6, 7... why have that one level where it hits 4+1? Strange.

Jun 8, 2010 8:46:03 GMT -6 Arminath said:

Also, now that I'm looking at it, keeping the Turn Undead acquisition at the 'real' levels and bumping the Spell Acquisition to 'fake' levels would really give every level a purpose (for Clerics at least). Even levels would be for spells while odd levels would affect HD and combat ability/saving throws.

Agreed. That way they gain HD at one level, spells at another. I'll have to tinker with this as well.

[coffee]

Jun 8, 2010 10:45:28 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

For example, for the cleric the HD goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 4+1, 5, 6, 7... why have that one level where it hits 4+1? Strange.

My guess is it was to keep them behind the Fighting Man. I think that's why Gary used different die types for the different classes in Greyhawk.

[Lord Kilgore]

Quick random thought on HD: If you use the "re-roll all hit points at each level and keep the new total if it's higher" method, you could advance HD every other level (or however often) but allow re-rolls each level.

A 1st level Cleric has 1 HD. A 2nd level cleric using this method would also have 1 HD, but a re-roll would be allowed upon reaching 2nd to improve the number.

Not sure how that would alter the numbers down the road, though. It would be like getting several "chances" at each of the old levels to get the best roll possible. But it would be a way to allow incremental improvement without HD numbers getting all wacky.

[coffee]

Seems to me you'd have a good chance of eventually maxing out your hit points that way. And that's not a bad thing for a 'power gaming' game.

[blackbarn]

I get what you're doing and think it's worthwhile. Indeed, I'd like to see more of this kind of thinking from people who understand the game... take it in new directions without violating the spirit of the rules.

Does OD&D "need" this? No, of course not. But it is innovative thinking, and would doubtlessly make the game more appealing for some player types, who are turned off by the seemingly slow rate of advancement in the game.