Character Expectations By Level

[No brains]

Has anyone ever come up with guidelines for what a character should be able to do at a given level? What are expected damage outputs, skill/ save DCs, spells known, and other variables that make a character 'good' at any given level?

[bean illus]

I'm pretty sure that the answer would need to be done for each class/party role, and for each optimization tier (low power or high power).

I think Dictum Mortum did some of that work on skill in the factotum handbook.

[Klara Meison]

I don't know about character expectations, since in D&D you are generally expected to work in a party. Here is what I think is generally expected out of a party at different levels:


lv 1 or so:ranged and melee combat, ways to combat threats with things like ER 5 or DR 5/magic either right away or with minimal preparation; diverse abilities allowing the party to deal with non-combat challenges (diplomacy, tracking people through a forest, etc)
lv 3 or so:ability to combat DR/magic consistently, ability to transport decently-sized piles of loot with little effort or preparation
lv 5 or so:consistent ability to travel in dangerous environments(through volcanoes, underwater, blizzards, etc) with little detriment to out-of-combat utility
lv 7 or so:consistent short-term flight; abilities allowing the party to very effectively, quickly and consistently deal with low-level challenges (i.e. a simple skill check failure should no longer stump the party)
lv 9 or so:capable of fighting in highly dangerous environments(e.g. underwater) with little to no detriment to combat prowess, provided preparation; capable of overcoming exotic challenges or hazards(petrification, threats capable of dimensional travel, curses, Geas, and so on) with preparation
lv 11 or so:consistent long-term flight and long-distance teleportation; party is capable of raising someone from the dead if that is necessary, though such an act may require some preparation.
lv 13 or so:ability to easilly fight underwater with no special preparation;
lv 15 or so:ability to overcome exotic challenges(e.g. petrification, dimensional shifts, ...) with little to no preparation (e.g. your party either already has scrolls, permanent magical items, has prepared relevant spells or can acquire them in less than 10 minutes); party is capable of raising someone from the dead quickly, consistently, and with little permanent resource loss.
lv 14-16:party has created a Wish sno-cone machine and used it to gain a +5 bonus to all abilities in preparation for their eventual apotheosis
lv 17:party members have multiple safeguards in case of their death and are really hard to put down. Think a wizard with a phylactery and a clone in a laboratory, who is projecting an image from the safety of his demiplane. To properly kill him you'd need to first destroy his image, then go to his demiplane and kill his original body, then destroy his phylactery and finally kill his clone. This is true for all party members, not only lv9 full casters, because they are either capable of it themselves (such as with certain Path of War maneuvers) or because aformentioned casters helped set this up.
lv 19 or so:party is capable of dealing with highly specific challenges and threats(such as Imprisonment, antimagic fields, and other high-level hazards) and is capable of using such means themselves(e.g. to Imprison a BBEG) with moderate preparation
lv 20:party is literally a new pantheon of gods now, and has comparable plot-power to a pantheon of gods. Congratulations, you have won. There is nothing more to do at this point. Party visits Abyss and hunts demons to pass the time, hosts parties in heaven and has their own bigass plane. Party tank is drinking buddies with Cayden Cailean, and party wizard gives Nethys tips on spell research.

[Endarire]

I asked a similar question years ago and got the answer of, "It depends!" (That's the essence if not the exact quote.)

D&D 4E has a page with expected math (DCs, accuracy bonuses, etc.) per level. D&D 3.x and PF, to my current understanding, don't.

[Pronounceable]

Has anyone ever come up with guidelines for what a character should be able to do at a given level?
Coastal Wizards did. They called it 4th Edition (and also threw the baby out with the bathwater).

[stanprollyright]

Rough avg dpr for damage dealers on full attack:
Lvl 1: ~10
Lvl 5: ~30
Lvl 10: ~100
Lvl 20: several hundred

[elonin]

The WBL chart is the best measure of power available and that has been provided in the DMG. To be honest I have a dislike of the whole challenge rating system that has some appropriate level challenge no matter where the players go.

[Telok]

lv 14-16:party has created a Wish sno-cone machine...
lv 17:party members have multiple safeguards in case of their death and are really hard to put down...
lv 19 or so:party is capable of dealing with Imprisonment, antimagic fields, and other high-level hazards...
lv 20:party is literally a new pantheon of gods...


Well, that may be a little over the top for non-optimized people.

For skills max ranks is the minimum. The maximum is Truenaming rank requirements for non-op, call it max ranks plus ECL*2, and about 150% to 200% of that for optimized stuff.

Grapple stops being funny at level 7, have a way to negate it. Not a way to just be able to beat it, but a method of putting a hard stop to it. Unless you're the huge sized +40 modifier grapple specialist, then you just need to keep an eye out for other grapple whores and have a backup plan because you're going to get a hard stop relatively often.

For magic
Invis and See Invis are at level 3.
Fly and Dispel Magic are at level 5.
Divination and Dimensional Anchor at level 7.
Contact Other Plane, Raise Dead, and Plane Shift are at level 9.
Hero's Feast and Anitmagic are at level 11.
Forcecage and Limited Wish are at level 13.
Disjunction, Gate, Astral Projection, and Wish are at level 17.

If you can't deal with those effects at those levels you are weak and will fail often. Scry and Die comes online at level 9, but you generally don't see it commonly used until level 11 or 13. As a hint, if your party isn't playing at the level of the spells they're using (this is usually the melee fools) then assume that they'll get wiped out by something and make an escape/backup plan. Something as simple as buying a Simulacrum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) of a Nightmare (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightmare.htm) (get some hairs via Planar Ally for a 12 HD Nightmare) can be done with 4000 gp (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spellcastingAndServices) in a large city and gets you Astral Projection at will.

[No brains]

I don't know about character expectations, since in D&D you are generally expected to work in a party. Here is what I think is generally expected out of a party at different levels:


lv 1 or so:ranged and melee combat, ways to combat threats with things like ER 5 or DR 5/magic either right away or with minimal preparation; diverse abilities allowing the party to deal with non-combat challenges (diplomacy, tracking people through a forest, etc)
lv 3 or so:ability to combat DR/magic consistently, ability to transport decently-sized piles of loot with little effort or preparation
lv 5 or so:consistent ability to travel in dangerous environments(through volcanoes, underwater, blizzards, etc) with little detriment to out-of-combat utility
lv 7 or so:consistent short-term flight; abilities allowing the party to very effectively, quickly and consistently deal with low-level challenges (i.e. a simple skill check failure should no longer stump the party)
lv 9 or so:capable of fighting in highly dangerous environments(e.g. underwater) with little to no detriment to combat prowess, provided preparation; capable of overcoming exotic challenges or hazards(petrification, threats capable of dimensional travel, curses, Geas, and so on) with preparation
lv 11 or so:consistent long-term flight and long-distance teleportation; party is capable of raising someone from the dead if that is necessary, though such an act may require some preparation.
lv 13 or so:ability to easilly fight underwater with no special preparation;
lv 15 or so:ability to overcome exotic challenges(e.g. petrification, dimensional shifts, ...) with little to no preparation (e.g. your party either already has scrolls, permanent magical items, has prepared relevant spells or can acquire them in less than 10 minutes); party is capable of raising someone from the dead quickly, consistently, and with little permanent resource loss.
lv 14-16:party has created a Wish sno-cone machine and used it to gain a +5 bonus to all abilities in preparation for their eventual apotheosis
lv 17:party members have multiple safeguards in case of their death and are really hard to put down. Think a wizard with a phylactery and a clone in a laboratory, who is projecting an image from the safety of his demiplane. To properly kill him you'd need to first destroy his image, then go to his demiplane and kill his original body, then destroy his phylactery and finally kill his clone. This is true for all party members, not only lv9 full casters, because they are either capable of it themselves (such as with certain Path of War maneuvers) or because aformentioned casters helped set this up.
lv 19 or so:party is capable of dealing with highly specific challenges and threats(such as Imprisonment, antimagic fields, and other high-level hazards) and is capable of using such means themselves(e.g. to Imprison a BBEG) with moderate preparation
lv 20:party is literally a new pantheon of gods now, and has comparable plot-power to a pantheon of gods. Congratulations, you have won. There is nothing more to do at this point. Party visits Abyss and hunts demons to pass the time, hosts parties in heaven and has their own bigass plane. Party tank is drinking buddies with Cayden Cailean, and party wizard gives Nethys tips on spell research.


I like this. This a pretty good list that still leaves many of the details of how to do these things up to the player. The one thing that chafes me a little is that level 17 implies that the whole party should be full casters. Are no other classes viable at that level? How much slack could one or two full casters pick up for less magical allies?


Rough avg dpr for damage dealers on full attack:
Lvl 1: ~10
Lvl 5: ~30
Lvl 10: ~100
Lvl 20: several hundred

I suspect there might be a little hyperbole to this, but an average Damage Per Round Per Level is something I'm curious about. I know save or [whatever]s can obviate damage dealing, but when I hear that uberchargers and warhulking hurlers can do damage in scientific notation I get curious what's expected out of damage classes. I'm also curious how the limitations or melee can be balanced against ranged attacks that can hit from more places.


The WBL chart is the best measure of power available and that has been provided in the DMG. To be honest I have a dislike of the whole challenge rating system that has some appropriate level challenge no matter where the players go.

One of the things I don't quite like about the vagueness of WBL is that there are a lot of bad picks for purchases. Having a certain amount of gold doesn't really tell you how to spend it right. Also WBL doesn't quite work right with consumables- do I want to spend money on one effect and ever get it again, or do I want to wait until I can get an effect constantly? Do charged items tend to run out right as their effects become obsolete? Does a wand of fireballs usually last until I can get something better?

[Troacctid]

Any competent damage dealer should be doing a bare minimum of 1d6 damage/level with a standard action. I call this the Warmage Standard.

[Klara Meison]

Well, that may be a little over the top for non-optimized people.


Well, in my opinion levels 15-20 are only really viable for people who understand a lot about the system and have played their class for a while. Giving a newbie a lv 16 character is like putting someone from the street into a fighter aircraft simulator and expecting them to do alright. There are just too many buttons to get a good grasp of controls instantly.

And people who know a lot about their class, about threats they would face, and mechanics of the game would optimise a bit.


For magic
Invis and See Invis are at level 3.
Fly and Dispel Magic are at level 5.
Divination and Dimensional Anchor at level 7.
Contact Other Plane, Raise Dead, and Plane Shift are at level 9.
Hero's Feast and Anitmagic are at level 11.
Forcecage and Limited Wish are at level 13.
Disjunction, Gate, Astral Projection, and Wish are at level 17.

If you can't deal with those effects at those levels you are weak and will fail often.

That's only true for Wizard. Wizard is above the general curve of the game, so putting them as the "norm" is a mistake. I added 2 to the minimum possible level at which a certain option becomes availible in my list, to adjust for not all parties being built in quite the same way(some of them might get some of those options earlier than a wizard/cleric, some later, but they should have them by the levels I outlined, or be able to hire a spellcaster to cast a spell for them).

--


I like this. This a pretty good list that still leaves many of the details of how to do these things up to the player. The one thing that chafes me a little is that level 17 implies that the whole party should be full casters. Are no other classes viable at that level? How much slack could one or two full casters pick up for less magical allies?

Well, not quite. You only need one, maybe two full-casters to do this-for example, your wizard can cast Clone for your fighter. Hovewer, you are pretty much correct. Pathfinder is very much a caster game, with martial classes playing catch-up. 3-d party products such as Path of War by DSP fix this somewhat (by giving martials options I described without resorting to spells), but not entirely. If you ever hear people talking about Caster/Martial disparity, this is what they are talking about-casters gaining way more options than martials as the party gains levels.


I suspect there might be a little hyperbole to this, but an average Damage Per Round Per Level is something I'm curious about.

Generally, a dedicated hammer(damage dealer, person specialising in taking threats out of combat) should be able to one-shot a creature with a CR of Average Party Level -2 and deal significant damage(20-40% of health/ability score if using ability drain) to a creature with CR=APL+3.


One of the things I don't quite like about the vagueness of WBL is that there are a lot of bad picks for purchases. Having a certain amount of gold doesn't really tell you how to spend it right.

Look for "Automatic Bonus Progression" on the SRD. Bonuses there are generally correct and account for ~50% of WBL, with the rest being spent however you want.


Also WBL doesn't quite work right with consumables- do I want to spend money on one effect and ever get it again, or do I want to wait until I can get an effect constantly? Do charged items tend to run out right as their effects become obsolete? Does a wand of fireballs usually last until I can get something better?

WBL doesn't take consumable items into account. Actual amount of gold your party is expected to get by the time you reach a certain level is equal to 4/3 of WBL, if you calculate it according to XP/Treasure per encounter tables. That extra 1/3 of WBL is consumable items.

[Jormengand]

Level

Wizard can...

Sorcerer can...

Bard can...

Truenamer can...

Monk can...

Samurai Can...



1

Summon creatures, attack, defend, identify items and effects, make save-or-lose attacks, buff, debuff, fall any distance, mind control

Summon creatures, attack, defend, identify items and effects, make save-or-lose attacks, debuff, fall any distance, mind control

Heal, identify spells, mend objects

No-save hold foes in place, succeed many skill checks, heal, attack, defend

Deal damage, use a few skills, make save-or-suck attacks.

Deal damage



2



Mind control,change appearance, summon creatures, make save-or-lose attacks


Survive nuclear explosions, well maybe




3

Be immune to most attacks, find most things, change shape, levitate, turn invisible



Know anything about anything, hit invisible enemies, silence enemies, break action economy
Move about quickly




4


Be immune to most attacks, find most things, change shape, levitate, turn invisible

Change shape, turn invisible, become highly resistant to most attacks

Gain oddly specific immunities, buff attacks





5

Fly, almost-scry, destroy squads of enemies, destroy buildings, heal self.




Be immune to a few effects




6


Fly, almost-scry, destroy squads of enemies, destroy buildings, heal self.




Scare enemies a little



7

Save-or-lose attack an entire encounter, teleport, create objects, scry, change allies' shapes


Buff, debuff, scry, fly

Fly, buff allies, resist many attacks, become invisible, save-or-lose enemies, identify items

Heal self




8


Save-or-lose attack an entire encounter, teleport, create objects, scry, change allies' shapes


Stop enemies from moving faster than a crawl and blind them





9

Make entire area imperceptible to all senses, make no-save-just-die attacks in an area, make invincible wall, know anything, tell anyone anything








10


Make entire area imperceptible to all senses, make no-save-just-die attacks in an area, make invincible wall, know anything, tell anyone anything

Teleport, destroy entire squads

Dispel and un-dispel magic, let allies retry versus save-or-X, resist spells


Scare multiple enemies a little



11

No-save mind control, destroy forts, utterly crush notions of wealth by level



Repair any broken object





12


No-save mind control, destroy forts, utterly crush notions of wealth by level


Destroy squads of enemies, minor terraformation

Teleport




13

Destroy cities, create copies of creatures, area no-save-just-lose vs many opponents.


Destroy an encounter with multiple creatures in, kill low-level creatures in their sleep from anywhere



Resist spells




14


Destroy cities, create copies of creatures, area no-save-just-lose vs many opponents.


Force enemy movement, become immune to many attacks





15

Wall annihilates those who touch it four times, change anything into anything, no-save-just-lose against anyone



Hide enemy's soul in nonexistent location, well maybe

Set up a save-or-die for later




16


Wall annihilates those who touch it four times, change anything into anything, no-save-just-lose against anyone

No-save mind control, no-save-just-lose against anyone, find any location

Destroy buildings, find out information in large area





17

Stop time, repeatedly change shape, become practically immortal, call in an equally-powerful caster




Speak any language




18


Stop time, repeatedly change shape, become practically immortal, call in a stronger caster


Alter chances to save by +/- 25%, mind control





19




Free metamagic on items

Turn ethereal




20




Destroy cities or caves, immobilise many enemies, call in a far stronger caster

Resist nonmagical weapons, fall any distance

Terrify entire squads




The amount of damage you should be able to do varies, but about 1d6/level is usually enough to be noticeable in relatively normal optimisation.

[Telok]

That's only true for Wizard. Wizard is above the general curve of the game, so putting them as the "norm" is a mistake. I added 2 to the minimum possible level at which a certain option becomes availible in my list, to adjust for not all parties being built in quite the same way(some of them might get some of those options earlier than a wizard/cleric, some later, but they should have them by the levels I outlined, or be able to hire a spellcaster to cast a spell for them).

It's not only for wizards. It simply assumes that there will be wizards and clerics, or creatures with the abilities of them, among your opponents.

Aranea, CR 4, sorcerer 3 plus web, poison, and shape changing. Nagas, CR 7 to 10, sorcerer 7 to 9 plus poison and SLAs. Phantom Fungus, CR 3 with Greater Invisibility. Harpy, CR 4, proficient with all simple weapons, Fly-By attack, and a Save-or-Lose ability.

Incompetence doesn't start at 15th level, it can become apparent at level 3 while fighting a plant (yes, I've seen it happen).

[Endarire]

Jor, man we get a full list of which effects you described in your table?

Also, what about Clerics (excluding domains) and Druids? What about stronghold and rapid mundane item construction via fabricate, wall of stone, and stone shape?

[Jormengand]

The six classes are deliberately one from each tier (so not doing cleric, wizard and druid separately), deliberately using truenamer instead of a more common tier 4 because what exactly can be done with skills isn't necessarily well-defined, and rogue abilities tend to be situational (such as sneak attack, which simply turns off against certain opponents) while truenamer abilities have more of a consistent mediocrity about them, due to - for example - the damaging ones usually either dealing irresistible damage or your choice of energy damage.

For the tier 4 and above characters, not all of their abilties were given. Even the truenamer gets 108 different utterances before you even think about any of their actual class features (the ability to teleport at will to whoever says your name is really cool, if not necessarily useful).

The abilities given...

For wizard and sorcerer: Summon monster I, burning hands et al, mage armour et al, identify and detect magic, sleep, enlarge person, reduce person, feather fall, charm person; protection from arrows and resist energy, locate object and see invisibility, alter self, invisibility; fly, clairvoyance, fireball, fireball, vampiric touch; black tentacles, dimension door, minor creation, scrying, polymorph; private sanctum, cloudkill, wall of force, contact other plane, sending; quest, disintegrate, wall of iron and fabricate; control weather (in spring or late winter only), simulacrum, waves of exhaustion; prismatic wall, polymorph any object, irresistible dance; time stop, shapechange, astral projection, gate
For bard: First one is a mistake and should be at second level (cure light wounds; bards don't get minor and I thought they did), detect magic, mending; charm person, disguise self, summon monster I, sleep; alter self, invisibility, mirror image; haste, slow, scrying, gaseous form; dimension door, shout; song of discord, nightmare; quest, irresistible dance, find the path
For truenamer: Reversed inertia surge, universal aptitude, lesser word of nurturing, knight's puissance, defensive edge; hidden truth, archer's eye, reversed silent caster, temporal twist; fortify armour, keen weapon; seek the sky, greater speed of the zephyr, energy negation, reversed vision sharpened, reversed temporal spiral, analyse item; fog from the void; spell rebirth and reversed spell rebirth, breath of cleansing, magic contraction; rebuild item; energy vortex, speak rock to mud; eldritch attraction, greater energy negation and ward of peace; transmute weapon; master the four winds, lore of the world; mystic rampart, reversed singular mind; metamagic catalyst; anger the sleeping earth, deny passage, conjunctive gate.
For monk: Unarmed strike, skills, bonus feat (stunning fist); evasion; fast movement; purity of body; wholeness of body; abundant step; diamond soul; quivering palm; tongue of the sun and moon; empty body; perfect self, slow fall any distance.
For samurai: Daisho proficiency; staredown; mass staredown; frightful presence.

[Zanos]

If anyone is interested in data, some folks over at BG compiled some stats across the CRs. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3472)

CR 20 gives an average hp of 409 and an average AC of 36, if you want to calibrate around that. Ignoring damage reducers for specific creatures, if a party of four hits that every round for 20d6 damage per person(70 damage), it will die at the end of the second round, which seems about right.

[Extra Anchovies]

Pathfinder Unchained's Simple Monster Creation (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/simple-monster-creation) rules has stats-by-CR tables, which could be reverse-engineered into expected PC stats by level (e.g. AC - 10 = expected to-hit).

[danielxcutter]

-snip-

I thought Truenamer was even worse than tier 6 because it simply won't work. Is this the non-official fix that most people use and I've only heard about?

[Troacctid]

I thought Truenamer was even worse than tier 6 because it simply won't work. Is this the non-official fix that most people use and I've only heard about?
No, you've been misinformed. It works fine and it's a solid T4.

[danielxcutter]

No, you've been misinformed. It works fine and it's a solid T4.

Odd. I heard that it had a problem with the DCs not being able to catch up with saves. Until it gets the ability to Gate in Solars of course.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Best guideline you're going to get is a cross reference of MiC's table that associates items of value X with level Y and the MM's guidelines on creating new monsters from wholecloth. This will give you target values for level appropriate save DC's for abilities, ac, attack bonus, save bonuses, etc and an idea of the kind of gear loadout to get you there.

Mind, the system allows you to exceed these expectations, by quite some ways in certain instances, but as long as you can meet them, you're in line with what the system itself expects a character of a given CR (level in the case of class based PC's) to be capable of handling.

As for abilities outside of basic combat modifiers, it's -entirely- up to the DM what will be needed vs what's nice to have. Generally, if you can fly in short bursts by level 5 and sustain flight by level 10, you don't -need- anything else.

[Jormengand]

Odd. I heard that it had a problem with the DCs not being able to catch up with saves. Until it gets the ability to Gate in Solars of course.

Here is the original line on truenamers from JaronK:


And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately). Highly optimized (to the point of being able to spam their abilities) a Truenamer would be around Tier 4, but with lower optimization it rapidly drops to Tier 6.

Now, even this is a little unfair on the poor truenamer. "Highly optimised" it's capable of casting on a zero from level 2, and that's even without sucking up to the Paragnostic Assembly, who buff your truespeak checks. By level 7, you can be casting on a -20, which allows you to get your new third-level utterance and another utterance off in the same turn, for example using empowered extended mortalbane energy negation and quickened reversed inertia surge to deal 4d6*1.5 damage every round for 10 rounds, and then hold the enemy in place for the first of those rounds, using a single full-round action (and good luck making the average DC 20.5 concentration check if you're a spellcaster, assuming you didn't pump your concentration quite so hard as I pumped my truespeak). Unless your enemy can dispel your utterances, they don't have a great chance of stopping you from being one of the strongest damage dealers in the game. Let's be honest; the equivalent of 60d6 damage over 10 rounds is never exactly likely to go out of fashion.

Even unoptimised to being literally unable to utter, it's still strictly better than commoner, apart from the different (not worse, just different) skill list, so it can't be worse than tier 6. Highly optimised, it can sail up into low tier three as its insane damage potential, ultimate knowledge, ability to mimic most rogue skills, and basic caster tricks like invisibility and flight come into play.

[Komatik]

Odd. I heard that it had a problem with the DCs not being able to catch up with saves. Until it gets the ability to Gate in Solars of course.

You can optimize them to keep up until you can gate in Solars.