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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 3, 2010 10:28:25 GMT -6
I was just thinking about Warriors of Mars and the fact that the system is built similar to OD&D in many ways. Also the fact that it is designed to top out at 12th level. (Recall that only John Carter was allowed to be 13th level.)
This got me wondering if there was ever a plan to cap OD&D at 12th level. Or, if not a plan perhaps a general understanding that 12th was as good as it gets.
Think about this: 4th level = Hero 8th level = Super Hero maybe 12th level = Ultimate Hero
Okay, so I know that Men & Magic clearly shows rules for above the levels listed, but maybe this was added later when players wanted to raise the bar even higher.
Facts to consider: 1. The Fighter XP chart ends at 9th level, HD chart tops out at 10th level. 2. The Cleric XP chart ends at 8th level, HD chart tops out at 10th level. 3. The Magic-user XP chart ends at 11th level, and while the HD chart extends to 16th level I noticed that a 12th level MU can cast the highest (6th Level) spells in the book. 4. Demihumans are capped at low levels (dwarf F6, elf F4 M8, Hobbit F4). None of these totals pass 12th level, and the elf adds up to 12. Also, level caps only make sense if humans aren't allowed to progress to infinite levels so that demihumans are at a disadvantage but not a ridiculous one.
So ... what do you think? Am I onto something?
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Post by coffee on Jul 3, 2010 13:44:40 GMT -6
I think "general understanding" is about as far as you can take it. Gygax in one article specifically states that, in the (at that time) four years that the longest campaign had been running (Blackmoor), nobody had gotten past 8th (I think). Or something like that.
And yeah, getting in a good position to "retire" meant you could start again with another, new, character. And that was something people liked back then (from what I understand).
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Post by Falconer on Jul 3, 2010 13:49:16 GMT -6
Definitely like it. I don’t have time to find it right now, but I know Gary stated in an early TSR or TD that he never had PCs in his campaign who advanced beyond a certain point. All this shows is that the levels above a certain point were put into the rulebooks on a purely speculative basis (maybe someday someone will want to keep advancing their character).
I definitely prefer using level titles rather than level number. So when you reach Lord/Wizard/Patriarch (or your non-human level cap), you really have “won D&D” in the sense that you have reached your character’s highest level. At that point, you retire the character, or focus on strongholds/Chainmail wars, or save him for when you really need a top-level character. For example, a lot of early convention modules (Against the Giants, Tomb of Horrors, etc.) called for characters of level 9+. In other words, bring your “finished” character, and we’ll see how he does.
But still, I really like the idea that you can keep advancing if desired (even if the benefits are slight and there is no change in level title), but that you can’t reach Level 13 because you’re not John frickin’ Carter!
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Post by doc on Jul 3, 2010 14:17:55 GMT -6
I run my OD&D games with the implied highest level as 12th. My rank demarcations are 4th=hero, 8th=superhero, 12th=legend.
However, I allow a 13th level of experience for characters that have become iconic in their class and reached their normal limits. An iconic character cannot be dual or multi classed and must be 12th level (so they are almost always humans, further enforcing the idea of a humanicentric setting).
There can only be a single iconic character at a time. So there is only one iconic fighter, one iconic assassin, one iconic cleric, etc. Iconics gain skills and abiliites unavailable to other characters. I don't have any set rules written down for what sort of abilities they gain; this I base more on how they have played their character over the years. A thief who has made it a steady habit of being able to hide from his enemies might gain the ability to become actually invisible at will. A fighter who always rushes into combat screaming like a maniac might get the power to force his opponents to save or flee in terror.
Since there can be only a single iconic member of a class at any time, there are instances where a character must either wait for the iconic to perish or else set out to kill them theirselves if they REALLY want that 13th level. I insist that there be some role-playing reason to do so, since player characters wouldn't actually know about "character levels" and the like, and would likely not be motivated to go out and seek a higher level character to kill off just to "get cool powers."
Finally, it is almost impossible to tell an iconic from any other high level character. Conan might be his world's iconic fighter, Elric his world's iconic magic user, etc. While these characters are certainly the stuff of legends, it isn't like they have little diamonds over their heads revealing their levels.
Doc
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Post by piper on Jul 3, 2010 17:24:59 GMT -6
I like this idea. A lot.
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 3, 2010 22:01:25 GMT -6
Here's the Gygax passage to which coffee and Falconer refer:
"It is reasonable to calculate that if a fair player takes part in 50 to 75 games in the course of a year he should acquire sufficient experience points to make him about 9th to 11th level, assuming that he manages to survive all that play. The acquisition of successively higher levels will be proportionate to enhanced power and the number of experience points necessary to attain them, so another year of play will be no means mean a doubling of levels but rather the addition of perhaps two or three levels. Using this gauge, it should take four or five years to see 20th level. As BLACKMOOR is the only campaign with a life of five years, and GREYHAWK with a life of four is the second longest running campaign, the most able adventurers should not yet have attained 20th level except in the two named campaigns. To my certain knowledge no player in either BLACKMOOR or GREYHAWK has risen above 14th level."
(from "D&D Is Only as Good as the DM" in The Strategic Review #7, April 1976, page 23)
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Post by coffee on Jul 3, 2010 22:26:21 GMT -6
Yup, that's the one. Thanks, Geoffrey!
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 3, 2010 22:42:20 GMT -6
Let's crunch Gary's numbers a bit.
1. Let's assume weekly sessions, thus 50 sessions/year (assuming a couple missed sessions each year). Since that's at the low end of the range Gary mentioned, it would make sense to assume that 50 sessions would yield 9th level (i. e., also the lower end of the level range).
2. Let's assume Gary was talking about fighting-men, the "standard" class. To reach 9th level, a fighting-man needs 240,000 xp. So 50 sessions yields 240,000 xp.
3. Each level above 9th-level Lord takes another 120,000 xp. Thus each such level would take 6 months to attain, or 2 levels per year (as Gary says). So our hypothetical fighting-man at the end of each of the following years will have attained the following level:
end of 1st year: 9th level end of 2nd year: 11th level end of 3rd year: 13th level end of 4th year: 15th level end of 5th year: 17th level end of 6th year: 19th level end of 7th year: 21st level etc.
But what gives? Gary said that after 5 years, the highest level PC in Blackmoor was 14th level. Why wasn't he 17th level? I think Gary gives us the answer here: "he should acquire sufficient experience points". So what happened to the missing 3 levels? Encounters with wights, wraiths, spectres, and vampires.
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Post by coffee on Jul 4, 2010 8:00:37 GMT -6
And the ever-present possibility of character death...
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Post by Falconer on Jul 4, 2010 8:18:34 GMT -6
Other possibilities: No-one actually played 50 sessions per year for 4-5 straight years. Arneson probably wasn’t even using the XP tables that Gygax published. Players played multiple characters (Ernie Gygax played Tenser, Serten, Erac, Erac’s Cousin, Burne...).
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 4, 2010 8:26:29 GMT -6
geoffrey, I think there is another factor you haven't considered -- one that could severly limit level growth.
1. Look at M&M page 18, on Experience Points. It gives examples of characters fighting monsters beneith their level and only gaining fractional XP for the battle. (Example of an 8th level character battling a 5th level monster, so the character only gets 5/8 XP for the encounter.)
2. Look at the HD numbers in M&T. How many monsters are at 10 or more HD?
Don't these two factors create a point of diminishing return? I can't get my 5,000 XP per week (your total, and probably a good one) if I'm always fighting things lower than my own level.
Just me thinking out loud....
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Post by aldarron on Jul 4, 2010 14:58:11 GMT -6
I think its somewhat telling that when Gygax typed up the original Thief character in 1975, he worked out the tables to 12th level and no higher.
Arneson forcibly retired his characters at level 20 and treated the player to a steak dinner! I think this only happened twice, since he only mentioned two players who got the dinner.
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Post by snorri on Jul 4, 2010 15:29:06 GMT -6
That's more or less the reason I caped at 12th level in Epées & Sorcellerie - beside the fact is was more elegant in a game with 2d6 - which can also have been a point for OD&D. After all, B/X caped at 14th, and even in AD&D, very few modules were published for level above 14 (so BECMI is rater the exception, but it cap to 36, a multiple of 12).
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 5, 2010 5:22:43 GMT -6
I think its somewhat telling that when Gygax typed up the original Thief character in 1975, he worked out the tables to 12th level and no higher. Nice catch! I didn't think to look for that one! My case is stronger!
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 5, 2010 5:30:15 GMT -6
As a general comment only tangentially related to this topic, a house rule I've used for years to combat the "limited levels for demihumans" problem is to allow all characters to advance only as far as 12 total levels. Demihumans capped in the "big three" can fill in remaining levels in Thief.
So, a Hobbit is limited to F4, but that means he can still be an F4 T8. Not such a bad thing.
The Dwarf is limited to F6, but could eventually become F6 T6.
Elf already has 12 levels (F4, M8) and could only add Thief levels if he chooses to self-limit farther in some other class.
Humans are the only folks in the game who can advance to 12th level in any single class.
This enforces the demihuman level limits, but makes them much less severe.
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Post by James Maliszewski on Jul 5, 2010 19:11:26 GMT -6
After a year and a half of play -- close to 50 sessions -- no one in my Dwimmermount campaign has achieved a level higher than 6. The pace of level increase is quite slow, if you use Supplement I-descended XP rules and I expect the same would be true even if you go pure LBB and use the fractional XP guidelines.
Anyway, I don't think it's necessary to explicitly make 12th level a cap, because in any reasonably paced campaign, it'll take years to reach even 9th level, so the point is probably moot. But I like allowing for the possibility of higher advancement should a player stick with a single character for many years.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 5, 2010 20:04:05 GMT -6
The mention in Vol. III of using Conan as the ultimate NPC to come into the campaign and wreak havoc just came to mind. If your campaign is not on Mars, then Conan might be a good replacement for John Carter as “the world’s only 13th-level character”!
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 6, 2010 5:46:05 GMT -6
A good point. Every fictional world has that "iconic" character, who might be the 13th level guy.
Has anyone else seen the spoof movie Spinal Tap? I keep having these visions of the guy who renumbered his music amplifier to go from 1-11 instead of 1-10, because there are some times when 10 just isn't loud enough. He can just go to 11....
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Post by snorri on Jul 6, 2010 14:30:55 GMT -6
Castle Greyhawk had twelve level, if I remember well, and "a good dungeon shouldhave no less than a dozen levels down" (U&WA, p. 4). The table for wandering monsters has a generic category 13+ (where live only the 6th table of monsters, the highest one), as well as the treasure table. Dragons, giants & hydraes both top at 12 HD (beaten by the mysterious purple worm and by the suggestions for T-Rex). All signs the 12 is really a possible cap.
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Post by snorri on Jul 8, 2010 9:11:13 GMT -6
As it can be linked to that question, please note I added useful things for OD&D archeology on my webpage (see my sig).
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Post by kenmeister on Jul 9, 2010 17:52:11 GMT -6
I actually may have posted this same topic on DF from an AD&D point of view, or at least I thought about it. Fighters get 2 attacks per round at 13th, then they are pretty much done. The thief backstab table tops out at 13th as well.
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Post by kenmeister on Jul 9, 2010 17:52:40 GMT -6
As a general comment only tangentially related to this topic, a house rule I've used for years to combat the "limited levels for demihumans" problem is to allow all characters to advance only as far as 12 total levels. Demihumans capped in the "big three" can fill in remaining levels in Thief. So, a Hobbit is limited to F4, but that means he can still be an F4 T8. Not such a bad thing. The Dwarf is limited to F6, but could eventually become F6 T6. Elf already has 12 levels (F4, M8) and could only add Thief levels if he chooses to self-limit farther in some other class. Humans are the only folks in the game who can advance to 12th level in any single class. This enforces the demihuman level limits, but makes them much less severe. Very nice.
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Post by Mr. Darke on Jul 9, 2010 19:24:17 GMT -6
At first I was skeptical of this thread but after reading it and looking at OD&D I can see where this can be assumed. My only question comes from Greyhawk where m-u's are extended to 22nd level and clerics are extended to 20th; with that in mind how does the 12 level idea fit?
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Post by coffee on Jul 9, 2010 20:23:01 GMT -6
Just goes to show you -- Greyhawk changes the game quite a bit.
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Post by kenmeister on Jul 10, 2010 5:24:26 GMT -6
At first I was skeptical of this thread but after reading it and looking at OD&D I can see where this can be assumed. My only question comes from Greyhawk where m-u's are extended to 22nd level and clerics are extended to 20th; with that in mind how does the 12 level idea fit? You could look at 6th level spells as the penultimate achievement, and 7th to 9th level spells as "epic spells" to be found on scrolls or cast by immortals.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 10, 2010 5:45:06 GMT -6
At first I was skeptical of this thread but after reading it and looking at OD&D I can see where this can be assumed. My only question comes from Greyhawk where m-u's are extended to 22nd level and clerics are extended to 20th; with that in mind how does the 12 level idea fit? Again, my supposition is that the "levels above those listed" section of Men & Magic was more of an add-on and not part of the original concept. Once you've opened Pandora's Box and created levels above the original plan, why not extend the charts? Also, with those added spell levels in Greyhawk (7-9) this changes some of the early level stuff a little, so they would need to at least re-do that part of the charts.
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Post by James Maliszewski on Jul 10, 2010 7:38:55 GMT -6
Just goes to show you -- Greyhawk changes the game quite a bit. An understatement if ever there was one! But, yes, I agree that this question becomes very different if one considers Supplement I or whether one sticks just to the LBBs.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 12, 2010 20:31:07 GMT -6
Crazy that in AD&D, John Carter had gone from Level 13 to Level 30!
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Post by coffee on Jul 12, 2010 20:34:38 GMT -6
Well, I'm not so sure. I mean, he was 13th in Warriors of Mars. Which is similar to, but not exactly the same as, D&D.
So John Carter wasn't really IN D&D.
But yeah, 30th level seems pretty doggone high...
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Post by Falconer on Jul 12, 2010 20:40:57 GMT -6
Shh, let me pretend.
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