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View Full Version : 3.5 I hate low levels and not advancing (rant)



Dusk Eclipse
2010-10-09, 09:51 PM
My gaming group is well, extremely inconsistent, campaing wise, in the last two years we have started at least 4 campaings, none of them really were continued, and many became one-shots. I know I could fix that by DM'ing myself, but when I tried it was a dissaster to say at least, and I must admit I don't like doing it.

The problem is that all this rolling new characters all the time, has robbed (in a sense) me, one of the things that drew me to the game at the start. The advancement (and thus a sense of victory, that all the work and effort you pu is rewarded someway) and the possibility of adquire reality bending powers (yes I love that part of the game)

To put hings in perspective, the highest level character I've played was a gestalt lich 17 in a PbP game which died (character and game) in the first encounter and within the first month of play. I did nothing. My second highest character is a rogue 10, I rolled him as level 8 so I only leveled twice in more than a year of playing that game.

Then all the other games started in levels lower than 6 and never advanced, and all this has made me sick of the lower levels. I hate being squishy, just making one attack per round, seeing low numbers on my character sheet, not getting access to what I consider the coolest thing in the game (high level spells/powers/manoubers/item/etc.

I hate making a build that while playable will not pickup until some level later, I hate not in 6 years of gaming face of against the classical D&D enemies (beholders, mind flayers, dragons, devils, demons etc), because they are too powerful for the level we play, I hate flipping through the MM and say "Wow, I am sure fighting against this monster would be loads of fun" and then reading a bit more to say "shame it's CR is more than 10". I hate taking a prestige class and never advance enough to get the capstone, or even some of the trademark abilities of it.

In all I hate lower levels, I really want to taste the reality bending powers that PC get at higher levels.

:smalleek:....wow that turned into a rant and a wall of text. Sorry but I just had to take it out of my chest.

Starbuck_II
2010-10-09, 10:00 PM
I can feel that.
Partly, the never advancing thing could be a DM issue: he could be keeping XP values arbitarily low to keep everyone from getting too strong.

The Build "will be better later" phenomenon is a terrible event that occurs alot due to certain system constraints. Any multi-casters feels that (Eldrich Theurge, etc).

If you use the Beta Pathfinder advice of Con Stat as extra hps at 1st in normal D&D: it really helps 1st level not be too swingy.

Dante & Vergil
2010-10-09, 10:04 PM
I'm going to +1 this thread. I feel your pain man.

HunterOfJello
2010-10-09, 10:05 PM
How many of these games were PbP? Those games usually burn out incredibly fast.


~

I'm DMing a RL game and having trouble with a similar concept. I want my players to feel like their characters are living and adventuring in an extremely dangerous world with great risks and great rewards. However, the players are so attached to their characters that they've said they would quit if the characters ever died.

I'm still trying to find a balance between exciting danger and total party kills.

WarKitty
2010-10-09, 10:07 PM
Ooo yeah I get this. My last druid the campaign ended right as I was getting to wild shape...hate that happening. Especially playing magic users, wizard 1 frankly sucks.

Edit at jello: that's what raise dead is for. :smalltongue:

CockroachTeaParty
2010-10-09, 10:12 PM
Eh, I'd suggest focusing less on the mechanics. If you try to make characters that are more characters and less builds, you can potentially find enjoyment at any level of play.

The brevity of your games/adventures/campaigns, and the inconsistency, is difficult to remedy, sadly. Even starting at level 1 and leveling to say, level 5, can give you a real sense of accomplishment and attachment to a character that's more valuable than just arbitrarily starting at high levels. A good DM can spice up low-level encounters, and by the same token, a poor DM can make high levels quite boring. It all depends on the people you game with.

If you regularly play PBP, though, don't expect to level up much at all. In all the PBP games I've played in, I've maybe leveled... twice? I find that with PBP games, it behooves you to build a character that mechanically fits your idea from the get go, rather than waiting for higher level abilities you'll never see. The same applies to things like feat choice, etc. Avoid taking prereq feats with the intention of getting access to ones higher up on the chain, and instead take more interesting, immediately accessible ones.

In the end, I'd say there's little beyond level 12 or so that's any more exciting or interesting than what comes before it. The 'sweet spot' of 3.5, roughly levels 6 through 12, are probably the best blend of danger, power, and interesting options. That said, levels lower than this are at least easier to run on the DM's part than levels 13+.

WarKitty
2010-10-09, 10:30 PM
Meh, it's more disappointing for me to see the characters that I feel are well developed and that I understand never level. I like these guys, I want them to grow and learn. And they know that there's better abilities out there and want them, and I want to see what they do with those abilities.

One Step Two
2010-10-09, 10:46 PM
How many of these games were PbP? Those games usually burn out incredibly fast.


~

I'm DMing a RL game and having trouble with a similar concept. I want my players to feel like their characters are living and adventuring in an extremely dangerous world with great risks and great rewards. However, the players are so attached to their characters that they've said they would quit if the characters ever died.

I'm still trying to find a balance between exciting danger and total party kills.


I had the same problem as this when DMing a while back, players love their characters, it happens. I find that if you want to maintain a level of danger, pit them against intelligent foes, ones who are out to capture the PC's. If you really want to turn up the danger levels, just call out the damage they take, not telling that it all might be straight subdual until after the heat of battle, and they realise that they were getting attacked with blunt arrows and saps. It might be harder to do in some settings, especially if it's wilderness based. But hey, some elves are very terrotorial :smallwink:

Dusk Eclipse
2010-10-09, 10:58 PM
First of all thanks guy, for actually reading my rant.

@Starbuck II: I don't know if the DM was giving low xp intentinally, even like that I should have leveled more than twice in a campaing that ran for ~2 and a half years. And then we left that campaing unfinished to start another.

Yeah I gave up on ever seeing the potential of my warlock/suel aracanamach/eldritch theurge fullfilled.

The squishy part was just a generalization I made.

@Dante & Virgil: thanks, I appreciate that.

@hunterofjello: of the games I am talking about, just the lich one was pbp, and it kinda don't count as one was a live session (we translated it to pbp cause the DM moved to spain).

Also I would love to see a game where I felt threatened, my usual DM (not the one who move to spain) treat us really carefully to the pint (at least to me) our characters seems unbeatable.

@Warkitty: one of the reasons I avoid spellcasters is this, yeah I still wish I could have finished Dusk's life-long goal of finding the silver claws.

@CochroachTeaparty: I am more of roll-player than a role-player, so crunch is one of the better part of the game for me, though maybe changing that might help me to enjoy the game more; but frankly since most characters won't see more than a session of play, puts
damper on my rp-ing instincts.

Yeah, I know it's hard to remmedy this, I've tried everything from trying to organize the group in a bi-weekly session to look for another group; but it hasn't worked so far. As far as PbP games go, most of the games I am chosen to play in, seems to die really soon, in fact I don't think I've even finish the first encounter in a PbP.

Well I can't compare the difference of higher level play cause I haven't actually reached it; but from what I can garner from reading the splatbooks and the forum it seems quite fun.