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2011-07-08, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
(I'm not sure if this is a rant or a discussion or what. But whenever I see game design questions here, people tend to favor ditching class/level systems in favor of point buy. I suppose this is why I disagree with that view.)
Point based systems that let you buy skills and abilities as you advance have always felt more realistic to me. They make a whole hell of a lot more sense than bashing orcs until you can speak elven. But I've always had more fun with leveling systems. Here's why.
When I play a character in an RPG I want the character to improve mechanically. I thought I preferred level based systems because you get a whole lot of advancement at once and I'd rather do that than get a point at a time. But I don't think that's it anymore.
What I really want is for my characters to get better at what they're good at. When I play White Wolf, if I'm playing a combat effective character, he'll start out with 4 dex and 4 in his weapon, so I'm rolling 8 dice and already specializing. If the game goes on long enough, I might increase those to 5 and end up with 10 dice. My character started so close to the upper limit of what was possible, that there was no room left for improvement over the course of the game.
In GURPS I'd start with a high weapon skill. It might increase a little, but anything beyond a 20 is just showing off. Even though there's no hard cap, there are diminishing returns. Maybe I could do a deceptive attack to give my enemy a -6 to defend instead of a -4, but it's not really worth the point investment.
Meanwhile, the characters who don't specialize in a particular skill end up filling it in. Almost all my WW characters have been to the shooting range in order to justify having a point in guns. If the game's has had multiple combats, I've probably bumped up the guns skill a little. 6 months into the campaign and the hobbyists are just as skilled as the specialists.
Anyway, I have a few ideas for how to deal with this. I've harped on WW, but I think I need to realize that skills should not be the focus of a character. In Mage if I pick a sphere to specialize in and over the course of the game advance fro ma 3 to a 5, that's a big enough deal that I'm happy. I just have to convince myself that my Virtual Adept is a Correspondence specialist, not an Int/Computers specialist.
In games with an upper limit, I think characters shouldn't be able to start anywhere near that limit. Maybe halfway there. I think this can be achieved with either more potential ranks in a skill or with lower starting points.
In games with no upper limit, maybe diminishing returns is overdone. I don't want to see skills get arbitrarily high (hi, 3.5 Diplomacy, how you doin?) but again, I don't want to start the game anywhere near where I'll end up. Diminishing returns effectively gives you a soft ceiling. You can go past it, but why would you?
tl;dr I don't like that point based games allow a specialist to begin the game at the peak of his ability and end the game at roughly the same ability. I want a specialist to get better at his specialization instead of watching the hobbyists and generalists catch up to him.If you like what I have to say, please check out my GMing Blog where I discuss writing and roleplaying in greater depth.
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2011-07-08, 11:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
That's a big part of my appreciation of class/level system (I didn't say preference, I don't know if I'd go that far...)
My big reason for coming back to D&D (was a GURPS player for YEARS) was pretty simple - for all the vaunted flexibility of GURPS, I still ended up with mostly archetypal characters - but there was a lot more variance in build, combat ability, etc. I picked up, as GM, a lot of headaches, but didn't really see much variation in actual archetypes.
Most players want flexibility for optimization, not customization. And, frankly, that just bores me.
So, that's why I moved back to a class/level system.
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2011-07-08, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
This is true. The only time I get frustrated at class/level based systems is when the system just doesn't support the archtype I'm going for. With some systems, this is a problem. The sheer volume of some(D&D) or broadness of the archtypes(D20M) mean that this often isn't an issue.
So...I play both. I tend to pick which game I feel like playing based on setting first. Then, I grab whatever system does the best job. Classless only happens if a classed alternative doesn't do a great job for that niche.
So, in practice, I essentially never play hero system or gurps. Because I can't think of any one niche they're absolutely best at. They don't cover a niche so much as they attempt to cover everything.
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2011-07-08, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
If you like what I have to say, please check out my GMing Blog where I discuss writing and roleplaying in greater depth.
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2011-07-08, 12:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
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2011-07-08, 12:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2011
Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
I'm confused. It sounds like you're talking about systems scaling and reaching conclusions about class-based systems.
Classless systems can have a huge spread in character abilities based on character advancement (see Mutants and Masterminds). Class-based systems can have little to no advancement at all (Crimes People Play, Shotgun Diaries).
I agree with you that some folks bash on classes more than they deserve - they're a good way of building genre constructs into a game. I just don't see what a system's advancement scale has to do with them.
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2011-07-08, 01:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2011
Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Ditto.
I still like Ars Magica, despite its points system, because I like the magic mechanics, and your character gets to do interesting and nifty things right at the start. You can even have a really powerful spell or two. Spontaneous magic prevents boredom because you're not always doing the same thing over and over. When you need something right at the moment, you can often do it.
That is unlike GURPS. The only GURPS I like is GURPS Supers because, as with Ars Magica, you get to do interesting and nifty things right at the start. However, that is all you do. Your character never really changes, and it soon becomes boring. With GURPS Fantasy, you're the same boring non-fantastic character from start to whenever you finally get tired of the same old thing.
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2011-07-08, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
There are many classless and/or level-less systems where you can improve a lot over the course of a campaign. Just off the top of my head:
In Mutants and Masterminds your power level only dictates the caps on your abilities.
WFRP has different careers that over different stat improvements, and you have to change to advanced careers if you want to improve further. No levels.
Exalted lets you start with peak stats, but charms are much more important and there's no way a starting character will have even remotely close to what an experienced one can do.
Fading Suns let you start with up to 8 in any stat or skill, and they can go up to 10 mundanely and higher than that with extraordinary means. It's also hard to start with all the psi/theurgy/combat maneuvers you want.
In Weapons of the Gods, starting characters have harsh stat caps and are much weaker than experienced ones. It's completely point-based, with three broad classes that have very slight mechanical differences.
And there's many more such games out there.
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2011-07-08, 02:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
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2011-07-08, 05:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
I'm not familiar with any of those, although M&M is gaining traction on my queue. I may have unfairly lumped class into this discussion when it's really about whether how abilities are purchased. Dark Heresy manages to be both classful and a la carte and I have no issue with its advancement because your specialty skills grow tremendously over the course of the game.
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2011-07-08, 06:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
I can enjoy both, but I still prefer point buy. It allows for more customization (you can skip the additional hit points in favour of more skills, for example), and it makes more sense in that an inexperienced fighter is still better at close combat than the average mage who travelled a little but never really cared about (if he did care, that's another thing, and precisely where point buy comes in handy).
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2011-07-09, 11:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
That's interesting.
In D&D 3.5, for example, when leveling you usually get some combination of HPs, BAB, Saving Throws, Feats, Skill Points, Ability Point, Spell Level, etc.
I haven't put any thought into it but I wonder if there's an easy way to "price" these so they can be converted from one to another. So, a character leveling up could choose to forgo the feat they get and turn it into an "equivalent" number of skill points.
Variety galore!Last edited by Kerrin; 2011-07-09 at 11:53 AM.
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2011-07-09, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
@Kerrin: What little I have seen of BESM d20 does that with its classes and abilities. The entire setup from the stats to the classes, abilities, and even feats are based off of a point buy system. Granted from the blatant anime feel I get from the pdf I have it is a bit of a turn off. Another thing would be the DM trying to get the entire group to convert the characters we had made to those along with a new player making theirs in a space of an hour.
As for White Wolf I do see what you mean by being near the top from the start. The shifter in our group is a tank in all aspects. He can do so much already when it comes to combat. On the other hand my character is a Cultist of Esctasy/Dreamspeaker that started with only one dot in all but two spheres. Since then I have only managed to increase two of my spheres and boy did it help. Without them we would have still been running around in circles trying to figure things out.
Point about the above is that if you specialize from the start and stick to it only then yes you won't improve much. If you however spread your net wide in skills and abilities then you may increase where you want seeing growth as you play.Last edited by TurtleKing; 2011-07-09 at 02:14 PM.
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2011-07-09, 05:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
The white wolf D10 system is very prone to min-maxing ruining balance.
The way we do things, is that we decided to limit the number of dots we put in to abilities unless there is a reason for the character to be one of the best in the world at the particular thing.
If you come from a system/GM/Storyteller where min-maxing is almost expected or needed, making a character can quickly turn in to 4-5 dexterity, 4-5 melee/firearms/brawl, and maxing a discipline/sphere/... The rest of the dots are put in to various abilities, creating a character that is a master at one or two thing, but comparatively useless at most other things.
Once everyone starts making more balanced characters, and the Storyteller finds a good balance for enemies the system can create more complex characters, and allows for more mechanical character growth.
With level based systems, the mechanical character growth is built in to the system, but the classes can restrict options, often needing several splat books or home-brewing to create some concepts reliably within the system.
It comes down to how you prefer it, each method has it's pros and cons. We usually switch between D20 and D10 systems once in a while as we enjoy both systems.
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2011-07-09, 07:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
If you like what I have to say, please check out my GMing Blog where I discuss writing and roleplaying in greater depth.
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2011-07-09, 07:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Just curious (not really making an argument), but what are your thoughts on the advancement in Apocalypse World, which is also class/level based (despite having their own terms for those two things)?
Basically, you advance in your class, picking special powers from their list and raising your stats. However, your stats quickly hit their peak, and you end up with most/all of the abilities that you want fairly quickly. This seems to be your issue with advancement in White Wolf games.
However, after you've maxed out a character, you continue to advance, by taking on a protege/associate/etc (there is a power you can pick on level up this is just "get a second character"). Then, on your next level up, your original character retires from the group and becomes a set-piece in the setting of the game, and you take on your secondary character full-time. In a full campaign, this can happen multiple times, with you eventually playing a badass with your two-three other characters as background assets for said badass until the eventual end of the campaign.
Just throwing this out there as an example of an advancement scheme that few RPGs seem to use, and hoping for thoughts.Last edited by Xefas; 2011-07-09 at 07:15 PM.
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2011-07-09, 07:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Never played it, but...
Basically, you advance in your class, picking special powers from their list and raising your stats. However, your stats quickly hit their peak, and you end up with most/all of the abilities that you want fairly quickly. This seems to be your issue with advancement in White Wolf games.
However, after you've maxed out a character, you continue to advance, by taking on a protege/associate/etc (there is a power you can pick on level up this is just "get a second character"). Then, on your next level up, your original character retires from the group and becomes a set-piece in the setting of the game,
Also, I keep mentioning WW for the sake of having a consistent example that a lot of people have played, but this has been my experience with most point buy games. The next one I have the most experience with is GURPS, which as I've mentioned has a soft ceiling. You can increase your skills further, but past a certain point it does you no good. (Or at least that's how it works in my group. If other people play it differently I'd love to hear about it.) I recall Shadowrun being similar, although I don't remember its rules very well. Even the homebrew system I'm playing in suffers from this - all the characters had maxed out their specialties midway through the game and ended up buying abilities that didn't relate to their characters just because we didn't know what else to do.
Maybe it's coincidence that I've found myself in point based games that let you start too close to your peak?If you like what I have to say, please check out my GMing Blog where I discuss writing and roleplaying in greater depth.
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2011-07-09, 08:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
(and all the other ones speaking about WW)
It's not so easy to have the maximum possible bonus. Supposing you start with Dex 4 and Firearms 4 and a specialty, you need 40 XPs to upgrade them to 5 and 5. To shoot with two pistols at your best, you need the Gunslinger and Quick Draw and Ambidextrous merits. You can buy them with your initial merit points. To use the best pistols (the Magnum ones from Armory IIRC) you need Strength 3, and you can't have this at the start unless you have 1 Constitution (which is really bad). So you need 10 more XPs (to buy Constitution 2). I think you also need Resources 4 to have them, and these are 20 more XPs. And, depending on the city you are playing in, you'll likely need a good Streetwise score to find them.
If you really want to, there's also a fighting style for pistols somewhere (Armory 2 I guess) which requires high Resolve. If you have a supernatural character, you should of course look for supernatural abilities to help you (e.g. you likely want the Fate 4 spell which allows you to reroll any dice, or Obfuscate 3 if you're a Vampire...).
So you can easily spend 70+ XPs just to become a very skilled mortal fighter with pistols. It's not something I would really do if I just had 70 XPs, since there are more important things to do than shooting down people in white wolf campaigns...Last edited by Pigkappa; 2011-07-09 at 08:36 PM.
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2011-07-10, 01:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
well said. if being awesome with a pistol is a good skill in your white wolf game, your white wolf game sucks. being able to DEFEND yourself is an important skill, and being able to SURVIVE is an important skill, but trying to max out one combat ability in the storyteller system as a starting character? you should be tripping over things that are immune or resistant to your munchkinism (at least in my experience with the game).
anyway, the big flaw with level-based games isn't that you get more spells, or more powerful attacks. it's that you get MORE HIT POINTS. ergo, a 1st level character can die from 1 sword strike, but a 20th level character can be stabbed 20 times by a sword, in the neck, or the eyes, or the genitals, and not die, because they're 20th level and have MORE HIT POINTS LOL. and that doesn't make any sense at all. in real life, a soldier or cop or doctor with 20 years of experience is not able to be shot in the head more times than a soldier or cop or doctor with just 1 year of experience. ergo, people desiring a more realistic (and to them more fun) game experience prefer levelless sytems ...
ps ERGO LOL
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2011-07-10, 02:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
When it comes to pointbuy/xp spending systems I much prefer to something such as Warhammer Fantasy, where the normal 100 xp you get you can spend. Every time. No matter what. I'm playing a WW game and I feel like I have to save up a lot to actually be able to buy anything I want. ODdly enough I like level systems where you have to save up Xp over several sessiosn to level up, but still.
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2011-07-10, 05:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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2011-07-10, 06:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
It really does depend on how you run it.
What I've found is:
- for combat skills, penalties accumulate sufficiently that skills in the high 20s aren't wasted. A skill 25 guy facing -3 for torchlight, -2 for bad footing, and -5 to target the neck of his foe only has a 15 skill (and you usually want to stay at 16+ if you can, due to critical hit/miss rules), and isn't inflicting any defensive penalties with a Defensive Attack. Against a similarly skilled foe, you probably need to do more.
- for non-combat skills, if they are opposed skills (Stealth, against the Perception of guards, say, or spells, which suffer range penalties and skill-based resistance) you want them pretty high, again.
- for non-combat, generally non-opposed skills, 20+ is generally not very useful. It can be, but only if the GM regularly makes uses of them heavily penalized or gives you chances to try them heavily penalized.
You do better with breadth than sheer depth, though - a guy with Broadsword-30 is great, but he's probably not as useful a combatant as the guy who saved 20 points and got Broadsword-25 and used those 20 for things like Combat Reflexes, or improved stats, or bought Techniques (which allow specialized uses of a skill to improve separately), or bought backup weapon and unarmed skills in case his sword isn't the tool for the job.
I found in my campaigns, there were never enough points to do all the things you wanted as well as you wanted . . . and I could always challenge everyone. I liked slow-and-steady growth but even my last game had guys transform quite remarkably. One fighter-type stayed a fighter-type the whole game, but another eventually learned magic. Not too dissimilar from going up in levels and taking another class. :)
So yeah, it depends how you play. The nice thing about D&D is that progression is on rails, so you basically have to progress and there is always something to do with that progression that'll be game useful. GURPS doesn't give you those rails, so people can choose how fast you progress and then you have to choose what "progression" means to your character.Peter V. Dell'Orto
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2011-07-10, 07:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
I know how you feel - our group used to do so as well. The thing is that most RPGs tend to favour an epic gamestyle where you are expected to level up, just like in Diablo 2. Which is okay, it's just not everything there is to roleplaying.
I would suggest to play Cthulhu in order to have a change. Experience doesn't really matter there, as you are mostly concerned with staying alive and sane (relatively).What can change the nature of a man?
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2011-07-10, 09:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Much of the reason why I don't prefer leveled systems (and DnD isn't the only guilty party here) is because they are abrupt and inorganic. You spend a long time at one level of power, and then instantly, you have an entirely new level of power, perhaps even with new special abilities, new spells, AND an increase in your statistics. Other systems (WW, L5R) have you very slowly, very gradually grow into the character you're playing. That appeals to me.
The other is the cieling. D20 has you start at max of 18 rolled, +2 racial, and as much as +5 by level 20. That means that the highest possible stat and bonus before various cheese is a 25/+7. The previously mentioned systems have the sky more or less being the limit. As long as you keep going, you keep growing.
But that's just one jaded, bored-with-d20 player's view of things.I am a:
Lawful Good Human Wizard (4th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 14
Dexterity- 16
Constitution- 16
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 18
Charisma- 11
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2011-07-10, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Class & level based systems are good at making sure there are things you can't do (have skills outside your class / above your level, min-max in certain ways) because they are prescriptive (they say what you can do and exclude the rest).
Point-buy systems, on the other hand, are permissive- if they don't prohibit something, it is usually allowed. As noticed by the OP, that's their strength, but also their weakness. For example, without specific rules in place, rarely does character advancement "unlock" whole new sets of abilities you could not take at character creation.
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2011-07-12, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
It's also worth noting that class and level aren't mutually required. They're usually linked, but not entirely.
A game with classes and no levels will have specific abilities that only certain people can learn, but you buy individual stuff as you like.
As an example, there is the White Wolf game Adventure!, which has three classes - Daredevil, Mesmerist, and Stalwart. Each one gets unique powers, which are bought with XP, but none of the powers are restricted to when you've reached a certain XP tier.
A game with levels and no classes would be really open in what you can buy on level-up, but would restrict when powers and skills could be learned. Mutants & Masterminds is capable of functioning in this way - power level can increase as time goes on, opening new tiers of power.If you like my thoughts, you'll love my writing. Visit me at www.mishahandman.com.
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2011-07-12, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
I like the FATE system's "skill pyramid" approach to discouraging minimaxing: In order to get skills at any level higher than +1, you have to have more(? might be just 'as many') skills at the next level down. So, if you wanted to have a combat monster with Melee 6, you'd need 2 skills at level 5, 3 at level 4, etc.
No, it has no in-character rationale, but as a game mechanic, it works fine.Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
Protip: DnD is an incredibly social game played by some of the most socially inept people on the planet - Lev
I read this somewhere and I stick to it: "I would rather play a bad system with my friends than a great system with nobody". - Trevlac
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2011-07-13, 10:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
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2011-07-13, 11:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Dresden sticks with the pyramid. I liked the pyramid in theory, but once again when I played it felt there was nowhere to go with my high level skills. I do like that it lets specialists retain their shtick, since it's harder for everyone else to catch up, but if you start with a +5 in your signature skill, it ain't getting better.
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2011-07-13, 11:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: I think I've finally figured out why I prefer classes and levels
Thats not true for all level based. Take Dark Heresy for example. The average starting hp is 10. By max level you might have the same number of hit points or potentially a few more if you decided to advance that way. You could be the best most well geared character but if you take a bullet to the skull and it rolls well, your going through the same thing a level 1 character would, the glory of the crit table.
I also definitely agree with the OP, a levelling systems as both a player and a GM are much nicer to comprehend and you get to see your character grow in the field you want him to. Im playing a game of Shadowrun as the party's face whose also an Adept. Im rolling something like 17 dice at starting level on just about all my talky skills and now im at a loss as to where to go from there. I want to be good at talking and negotiating, combat isnt my thing but there we go, i've become the best at what i do. I guess I could get a bunch of knowledge skills but beyond that, I just start underperforming in someone elses field.