The Full Implications of Class Levels and PC Power Levels

[Dusk Raven]

So, I'm working on a mixed literary/RPG setting, one where the process of gaining more experience and leveling up -- or rather, growing stronger beyond what humans are normally capable of -- is an actual in-universe phenomenon, as are the various abilities one gets by virtue of having levels. High-level Fighters are capable of moving faster and hitting with greater force and accuracy than normal humans*, high-level mages can channel unbelievable amounts of power, and high-level characters of any sort are just better than what they do, as well as being more durable -- HP isn't plot armor in my games, the characters are actually in-universe capable of being smacked around by weapons larger than they are, or find themselves at the center of a magical explosion, or just plain fall a hundred feet, and walk it off.

*My stance on martial characters is that, past a certain point, you're just not normal anymore, you're a magical being even if it only manifests in the form of physical power, or special attacks with your weapons. Some may dislike this "anime" approach to martials, but I hold that it's the only way to make high-level martials compete with high-level mages.

Of course, the above is nothing new to players and DMs, but what people are less used to, I think, are thinking about the implications this has for a setting. How does society change when people know that, through hard work and willpower, anyone could rise above their station and become a great hero? Further, how does warfare change when you have actual superhuman warriors and mages on the battlefield? Tempting though it is to imagine a typical medieval battle in fantasy settings, unless PCs and mages in particular are very rare, I think that's just asking for a massacre - especially if you have things like giants, golems, or other monsters taking the field. The closest I've seen D&D come to addressing this is a section in 3.5's Complete Warrior, where it talks about a hypothetical world where, thanks to the prevalence of monsters and characters with class levels, warfare becomes a bit more like modern-day combat, with monsters or constructs taking the place of tanks, teams of characters acting as elite special forces, and most infantry using bows and having to rely on cover in order to avoid the attention of beings more powerful than they. It was certainly thought-provoking, but not nearly enough for me. So... I want to ask the Playground about its thoughts.

[Tvtyrant]

A lot of series do this in one way or another. Vampires in most settings do it, fantasy mages almost always work this way, some series like A Practical Guide to Evil or Sanderson's Way of Kings do it explicitly through Names, Oaths, etc.

The biggest thing is explaining how the world has normal physics for unleveled people and what allows them to violate the laws of physics when they level. Pretty much everything else follows from that explanation.

Mages usually work like this because "magic" gets better the more knowledge and skill you have with using it, and it violates the rules already. So then they get to violate the rules more the better they get at it, or more in tune, or more special they are. Why does swordguy magee get to attack 146 times a second and survive asteroid strikes though? What is mechanically going on in their universe?

[Dusk Raven]

A lot of series do this in one way or another. Vampires in most settings do it, fantasy mages almost always work this way, some series like A Practical Guide to Evil or Sanderson's Way of Kings do it explicitly through Names, Oaths, etc.

The biggest thing is explaining how the world has normal physics for unleveled people and what allows them to violate the laws of physics when they level. Pretty much everything else follows from that explanation.

Mages usually work like this because "magic" gets better the more knowledge and skill you have with using it, and it violates the rules already. So then they get to violate the rules more the better they get at it, or more in tune, or more special they are. Why does swordguy magee get to attack 146 times a second and survive asteroid strikes though? What is mechanically going on in their universe?

With this thread, I'm less concerned with the mechanics (because that will vary by setting) and more curious about how other people in the setting take the existence of high-level characters into account (because that's useful for DMs in general). The "how" is only partially relevant to that, I think. But to answer the question - my current working explanation is that as a person's soul gets stronger, it starts having more of an effect on their body, able to boost their strength, speed, and durability. Or, in other words, Ki. Worth noting that in my setting, everyone has some reserve of magical power, even if it's small. Mages are those who have learned how to channel it into spells or other blatantly magical effects.

[Tvtyrant]

With this thread, I'm less concerned with the mechanics (because that will vary by setting) and more curious about how other people in the setting take the existence of high-level characters into account (because that's useful for DMs in general). The "how" is only partially relevant to that, I think. But to answer the question - my current working explanation is that as a person's soul gets stronger, it starts having more of an effect on their body, able to boost their strength, speed, and durability. Or, in other words, Ki. Worth noting that in my setting, everyone has some reserve of magical power, even if it's small. Mages are those who have learned how to channel it into spells or other blatantly magical effects.

I just don't think there is a generic answer, is the thing.

So for cultivation settings like this there is all sorts of questions like:
1. How long does it take to get stronger?
2. What things does it require to do so?
3. What percentage of the population is each level?


For instance if a very small part of the population is leveled and it takes years of death defying acts to gain a level I imagine the answer is: Barely any. They are like super heroes or demi-gods, where they live it is a big deal but outside of that its like a myth.

If there are a lot of leveled individuals, maybe all of them, and they level quickly like in a Manwha you get Murim stuff I imagine. Tribes/clans/organizations built around high level individuals who splinter off as new individuals become strong and take their followers to be their own organization. Combat is more about supporting the highest level members and less about battle lines, big solid formations are replaced by small groups that act as clashers; the members of each organization work to try and interfere in the higher level fights enough their high level person wins and then when the enemies high levels are dead the low levels get slaughtered.

[Sapphire Guard]

There would be a strong incentive not to fight adventurers. No group of city watchmen would try to break up the tavern brawl's you either bring out the whole garrison or leave it alone.

If they need to, local guardsmen are going to fight much more cautiously, they're not going to do 'charge with our swords but spend a lot more time doing slow poisons, sniping and hiding. If you're a city watch member needing to take down a level 8 fighter, the answer is not a head on fight.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My 5e setting has something close (although on a reduced scale):

* Power levels are detectable--the Aventurer's Guild, which is the international regulatory and enforcement agency for adventurers has a method to observe and record an approximate power scaling.

* Most people experience strongly diminishing returns (with a soft cap ranging from 5th-8th level on average, with a few hitting level 10); those with "unbounded" growth (capped at level 20) are very rare.

* Many with unbounded growth die early on. This makes adventurers above the 3rd-5th level band really rare. A few per million.

* Only adventurers experience explosive growth, since growth rate is proportional to risk, and there aren't many other really risky occupations, at least not that have correlated with power growth. Wizards in a lab may grow, but at the rate of one level per 5-6 years on average. It's a time of relative peace (at least on the war scale), so most guards are green, occasionally chasing thieves but generally low risk.

* Adventurers (in the western area where I've focused) are effectively a separate social class, protected by some laws while cabined by others. For example, registered adventurers are freed from any social caste restrictions in force wherever they go. They can own and use magic weapons and armor and "destructive devices". However, to be registered means you're part of a Registered Company and your Company is responsible for your behavior. And Companies are chartered by governments. The AG maintains a group of Enforcers (the highest level, most well-equipped former adventurers they can find) whose job it is to hunt down and kill[1] adventurers who cross the line. But it also tries to suck up to and maintain good relationships with the high-power folk around.

* The AG has a monopoly on a limited portal network (think Stargates, except local). This they use ruthlessly to maintain peace among the nations. The few serious conflicts of the last 50 years have been low-level "neighbors raiding each other" slow burns, not major army confrontations. The last time people tried, an air drop of 15 of the high-power folk, aided by the world's only airship (armed) and a few dragons got everyone to back down. Only casualty there was an idiot who cut his arm with a bowstring when he panicked on seeing the dragons and released his bow without taking care.

High level adventurers are notable and are noticed--there are gossip rags that circulate about their doings. Adventuring groups get names early on and don't remain secret once they make their first big splash. So being a high level adventurer is like being a celebrity super hero, without the secret identity (usually). There's also a (justified) meme that everywhere adventurers go, something explodes, makes huge lights, falls down, or otherwise makes a big flashy mess. So many places are (quietly) fearful of adventurers, seeing them as storm crows.

[1] everyone realizes that trying to imprison powerful people like that is relatively futile. Low level ones might get captured, but the Guild Enforcers usually don't handle those cases.

[RandomPeasant]

One interesting effect of (D&D-style) leveling is that something like the Fremen Mirage (https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/) is actually true. If you go off and live in a horrible wilderness that's full of Owlbears and Yellow Musk Creepers and Bulettes, your descendants will be demonstrably more badass than people who live in settled lands where the most dangerous thing is the occasional wolf or (regular, non-owl) bear. That's going to lead to societies and histories that are entirely different from our own. Instead of states mostly repelling non-state societies, you'd get a repeated cycle of people invading in search of lands where it doesn't rain fire all the time and rivers are full of fish and drinkable water instead of acid and acid sharks, driving out the survivors into the marginal lands they vacated, and those survivors coming back in another generation to repeat the cycle. Alternatively, societies might intentionally maintain wildernesses to use for training their adventurers, with people fighting over mountains filled with wyverns as if they were oil fields or fertile river valleys or iron mines (while I can't recommend the story as a whole, the world-building of Delve (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25225/delve) explores this a bit).


With this thread, I'm less concerned with the mechanics (because that will vary by setting) and more curious about how other people in the setting take the existence of high-level characters into account (because that's useful for DMs in general).

But the mechanics are very important to the setting. Are adventurers able to completely outclass what normal society can do, or can a sufficient concentration of force meaningfully threaten them? What's the power distribution of adventurers? How common are adventurers? Do adventurers get exclusively combat-relevant abilities, or do they have abilities that have applications for nation-building or society at large? Are monsters constantly encroaching on civilization, or do they mostly remain in wild areas where people don't live? The answers to those questions (and others) have a dramatic impact on what the world looks like.

[Dusk Raven]

But the mechanics are very important to the setting. Are adventurers able to completely outclass what normal society can do, or can a sufficient concentration of force meaningfully threaten them? What's the power distribution of adventurers? How common are adventurers? Do adventurers get exclusively combat-relevant abilities, or do they have abilities that have applications for nation-building or society at large? Are monsters constantly encroaching on civilization, or do they mostly remain in wild areas where people don't live? The answers to those questions (and others) have a dramatic impact on what the world looks like.

I misspoke earlier - it's the why that's not quite relevant. The "how" I was referring to is "How does X occur?" where X is the process of gaining power via levels, and the "how" is the justification given. Obviously, how it works is quite important.

Anyway, the way I imagine it working is... well, as I understand it, physical strength is built by going through exercise that tests your limits, and when your muscles heal they come back stronger. Skills are built through repetition and experimentation as well as, of course, testing your limits. And personal character growth is done by encountering new experiences and having to wrap one's head around them. Building soul strength is like a combination of those. It's best built up by going through hardship, perhaps even to the point of risking your life, in a way that requires you to use your abilities in a way that your current soul power is only just sufficient to deal with. But push yourself too far, and you might just break.

Meanwhile, also similar to building physical strength, willpower is an important component, because willpower is what allows someone to actually push their limits. In my setting in particular, where the gods care nothing for belief but reward people for following particular ideals, it also helps to have a particular cause to believe in - which willpower helps them achieve.

I haven't yet decided how common "heroes" (as they are known) are, however, and that's a very hard question to determine a good answer for. I do know one thing - the proportion of people above "mundane" level, and the soul power of people in general, is actually growing over time in my setting. This is because reincarnation is in effect, at least in some capacity, where people inherit the soul power of people who lived before - although this doesn't actually make them more powerful from the get-go, it merely extends their potential, should they choose to push themselves and develop the abilities they've inherited. Another theme of my setting is that power is rarely just given to you... power requires either effort, or a price.

I do currently have a few "tiers" of power in mind, at least when it comes to D&D levels. Adventurers of level 1-6 are relatively common, but many never really rise above that. Those from level 7-12 are less common, and although your average city will still have quite a few of them, and can show up here and there when battling bandits or small military forces. Levels 13-18 are quite rare, and only individuals of extraordinary talent and willpower. An entire kingdom might have a number of these, but only a small number, and they'll be accorded both considerable respect and caution, a commander deploying them with care. Those of 19 and higher are less than one in a million (significant in medieval times), and the kind of people legends are written about.

One final note - I'm toying with the idea that it's possible for people with higher soul power to increase the power of those they're close to, or at least help them achieve higher power. This does, of course, explain why a group of PCs are all the same level(usually), but since psychic bonds are a thing in my setting, as is the theme of the power of people to inspire those around them, I like the idea and want to find a way to incorporate it...