"Power Leveling" a Friend?

[kalos72]

So as some of you might be familiar with, the term "power level" is one used to describe the act of higher level toons bringing a lower level on through high end content to soak XP from the encounter, mostly for online gaming and such. World of Warcraft, Everquest and the like...

No one of my group wants to bring up an olf character he has but he is WAY WAY behind level wise. I COULD just go "poof you are the same level as the group" but I prefer to make the group RP it if they want him to join the current campaign.

Is there any rule that says a group of 20's cant take a lv1 and go kill orcs to net the lv 1 exp? I have thought about summoning pits to force the character through as well but not sure that RAW in anyway shape or form.

Other suggestions?

[Nifft]

Are you the DM?

I'd suggest just giving the lower-level PC a bunch more XP for every fight, so the character catches up quickly.

One level every other session, perhaps.

That gives a vaguely organic feeling growth while still not being constantly horrible -- even while frustrated about being low-level, the player will simultaneously be excited about leveling so frequently.

[Sgt. Cookie]

What Nifft said, although to add, be sure to make it clear that this rate of levelling is only a temporary thing, just while he's so far behind.

[Deadline]

Why couldn't you just make them the same level as the group? It's easy enough to say "while you guys were off doing your thing, this character wasn't exactly sitting on his hands".

But if you are looking for rules info, I think any encounter that isn't considered a challenge doesn't award XP. But as the DM, of course, you can pretty much fiat it. What would be the most fun for your group?

[ExLibrisMortis]

You only get XP for overcoming actual challenges. For a group of level 20 characters, it's probably not challenging to kill regular orcs. However, killing shadow orc barbarian 20s is fair game.

I would suggest giving the low-level character something like 200-1000 xp per in-game day just being near the high-levels, watching them train/work/do stuff during downtime. Coordinate it so that it works out to a couple of levels per session. After a handful of sessions of being way behind, the fun is probably gone, and you want to be equal again.

[Rubik]

Just have the high level characters Gate in a zodar (or Shapechange into one), then use its 1/year Wish to create a thought bottle, already attuned to the low level character, which contains enough XP to bring the outlier up to their level.

Or purchase a thought bottle, cast Curse of Lycanthropy on him multiple times so his ECL is approximately equal to the party's, use the thought bottle, Dispel or dismiss the castings of CoL, then retrieve the XP stored in the thought bottle.

Or just say the character has been earning XP elsewhere, even if it's in a flowing time outer plane.

[kalos72]

Just have the high level characters Gate in a zodar (or Shapechange into one), then use its 1/year Wish to create a thought bottle, already attuned to the low level character, which contains enough XP to bring the outlier up to their level.

Or purchase a thought bottle, cast Curse of Lycanthropy on him multiple times so his ECL is approximately equal to the party's, use the thought bottle, Dispel or dismiss the castings of CoL, then retrieve the XP stored in the thought bottle.

Or just say the character has been earning XP elsewhere, even if it's in a flowing time outer plane.

Not sure how the Wish idea would work, just wish for a thought bottle with enough XP in it already?

I suppose I could create another demiplane with "training" as the purpose, 1 day in Prime and 1 year in Demi or something. Could use that for NPC's too actually...

[Rubik]

Not sure how the Wish idea would work, just wish for a thought bottle with enough XP in it already?Basically, though it would have to be attuned to the character in question. It wouldn't work on a standard Wish, since I believe the caster would have to pay the XP cost of the XP in the bottle, but since the Wish in question is (Su), that cost is waived


I suppose I could create another demiplane with "training" as the purpose, 1 day in Prime and 1 year in Demi or something. Could use that for NPC's too actually...Hyperphallic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN-_hqlmu3k) Lion Tamer? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTuw3SnX-zw)

[ericgrau]

He gets additional xp as built-in to the system. But I think it caps at something like 4 or 8 levels behind.

But I would suggest that the DM give him free levels until he is at most 2 levels behind the party, if not the same level. If he has a lot of story behind the character, let him and the DM write a story for those levels too.

I advise against creating anything in-world that rapidly gives him several levels short of a one time event like a light pouring from the gods. Even that needs some story reason. Otherwise you open up the possibility to abuse that method or need to make up explanations for why it doesn't work anymore and why nobody evil is trying to get it.