“Looping” e6 idea

[Dr_Dinosaur]

So the main complaint I’ve been faced with in trying to get players to try e6 variants has been “I like gaining new features from leveling up too much.” But I think this idea might solve that issue:

After hitting 6, you start a new gestalt track and level on that, and so on. If you have fewer than 6 levels of a class in your original track, you may keep leveling in it up to a total of 6. Prestige classes can be taken once you qualify as long as they aren’t Theurges.
Numerical bonuses take the higher numbers at each level (or total, if starting above level 1), so starting into Barbarian after 6 levels of Rogue will gradually replace your BAB, Fort save, and HP with the higher value as you level in Barb.

I call it “Multi-track Leveling”

[Cosi]

If you want to keep leveling, why not just ... keep leveling? This feels like you're trying to patch a system into doing the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do.

[Mike Miller]

So the main complaint I’ve been faced with in trying to get players to try e6 variants has been “I like gaining new features from leveling up too much.” But I think this idea might solve that issue:

After hitting 6, you start a new gestalt track and level on that, and so on. If you have fewer than 6 levels of a class in your original track, you may keep leveling in it up to a total of 6. Prestige classes can be taken once you qualify as long as they aren’t Theurges.
Numerical bonuses take the higher numbers at each level (or total, if starting above level 1), so starting into Barbarian after 6 levels of Rogue will gradually replace your BAB, Fort save, and HP with the higher value as you level in Barb.

I call it “Multi-track Leveling”

I like the concept. I haven't played e6, so I can't comment from experience. It makes sense to me, though.

[Zaq]

If you want to keep leveling, why not just ... keep leveling? This feels like you're trying to patch a system into doing the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do.

This way you’re still capped at CL 6 / 3rd level spells, which honestly makes an enormous difference. And +6/+1 BAB, however many HP and saves you can wring out of 6 HD, etc.

[heavyfuel]

I DMed a game like this.

You could Gestalt with your previous class by spending two feats on them.

For example:

Rogue 6 has gained enough XP for 2 feats;
He takes a gestalt level in Wizard.
The d4 and the 2+Int skill points are not added because the Rogue gets better
He does gain the +2 to Will and spellcasting, as well as class features (familiar and scribe scroll, or acfs)

After 2 more feats the Rogue 6//Wizard 1 could take yet another level from a class. I did use fractional BAB for it.

They could also take PRCs as long as they qualified for them, though I did stop PRCs that gave them abilities too far from normal lv6


It worked out really well. Like, surprisingly well.

[Thurbane]

I've never played in an E6 game, but it sounds like an interesting variation!

[TiaC]

I posted a thread (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=11352.msg191626#msg191626) about this some years ago.

[Fizban]

Mechanically there's nothing wrong with it.

As a non e6 player, it wouldn't make me more interested. One of the main things I dislike about the concept of e6 is the grafting on of extra power after 6th- if this is supposed to be a style focused on the 1-6 levels where things are grittier and less unbalanced, why aren't we stopping at 6th level characters? Shouldn't the xp and leveling be broken down so you spend more time at the various levels, not just going to 6th and then staying there and getting more stuff?

If you want to just play the game at a certain level without leveling up then you can do that. If you want "progression" without leveling up, there's a whole gameworld full of NPCs and monsters and magic items. But all I ever hear about (which is not inductive of actual play, just forumites), are "e6" games and variants that seem to focus entirely on being level 6+++. If you want more options, why not raise multiple characters in classic JRPG (and western RPG, basically just RPG) style and switch them out? If you want more options on a single character why not let them learn to swap feats or levels or whatever instead of just making them deliberately *more* powerful than a 6th level character?

Aside from that one thread where someone did want to break things down smaller, but wanted to do it in a completely un-intuitve way that annoyed me.

[Raxxius]

Mechanically there's nothing wrong with it.

As a non e6 player, it wouldn't make me more interested. One of the main things I dislike about the concept of e6 is the grafting on of extra power after 6th- if this is supposed to be a style focused on the 1-6 levels where things are grittier and less unbalanced, why aren't we stopping at 6th level characters? Shouldn't the xp and leveling be broken down so you spend more time at the various levels, not just going to 6th and then staying there and getting more stuff?

If you want to just play the game at a certain level without leveling up then you can do that. If you want "progression" without leveling up, there's a whole gameworld full of NPCs and monsters and magic items. But all I ever hear about (which is not inductive of actual play, just forumites), are "e6" games and variants that seem to focus entirely on being level 6+++. If you want more options, why not raise multiple characters in classic JRPG (and western RPG, basically just RPG) style and switch them out? If you want more options on a single character why not let them learn to swap feats or levels or whatever instead of just making them deliberately *more* powerful than a 6th level character?

Aside from that one thread where someone did want to break things down smaller, but wanted to do it in a completely un-intuitve way that annoyed me.

Depends,

Fundamentally a lot of animes/fantasy books really cap around the powerlevel of 6/8 characters. So while E6 captures the Sword and Sorcery grit. It can still function well in high fantasy settings where you don't players to be walking 'i win' buttons and more importantly, death is a real thing to fear.


I've used a number of options in E6 for 'advanced' classes. One that has worked well with my players is Prestige classes as gelstated to a core class, although that only works with certain prestige classes. The proposed system works quite well as well.

I have found E6 generally ends up with hotswapping of character, my players like that, and they often have 3-4 characters on the go. This works well in case of accidental death by sword, as the player doesn't need to re-roll, and twin brother syndrome is much lower.

Each to their own though.

[umbergod]

I've done similar in my games, it works and was quite fun, given the plethora of concepts and combos you can have with this style